Long Garlands Poems

Family Poems

Mother's Smile
by Michael R. Burch

There never was a fonder smile
than mother's smile, no softer touch
than mother's touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than "much."

So more than "much, " much more than...

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Poems about Children


The Desk
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

There is a child I used to know
who sat, perhaps, at this same desk
where you sit now, and made a mess
of things sometimes.I wonder how
he learned at all...

He...

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Beckoning
by Michael R. Burch 
 
Yesterday the wind whispered my name
while the blazing locks
of her rampant mane
lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday
I saw the way
the wind caressed tall pines
in forests laced by glinting streams
and thick with...

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- 2016 -

- JANUARY -

A freezing cold evening

Where the stars shining bright

With frost blade flanks

From mouth and nose steam

In the clear silence

White untrodden snows

Nature's frozen pulse

Sleep like a little baby

One gracious moon

After the night the...

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Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then...

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Sonnets LXXI-LXXX

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.

Because you...

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Embrace The Lines

Vitality marks gently stretch your soft skin beyond the wildest dreams of
beauty unbound where children had once or thrice embraced your womb
the soothing waters cushioning and cradling three miracles three water 
marks engraved...

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"Dandylion" 

The guy was a 
Dandylion 
there was 
no denying it

full of promises
and making wishes
residing over 
this new world

poetically 
speaking, he
shone like 
the Sun

he sat on his throne
for all to see
the mane man
roaring non-garrulous

declaring 
to...

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“On the Sonnet”
by John Keats

If by dull rhymes our English must be chained,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fettered, in spite of painéd loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrained,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To...

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Gloriously luxuriating in eternal sleep

Forlorn; bereft of golden
(slippered) opportunities I weep;
Three score and four years
replete with mailer daemons,
hence mindset adrip
with self denouncing expletive filled bleep
unwritten expressed recriminations
wielded upon figurative head of wimpy blip;
decades elapsed at...

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PRINCESS DIANA POEMS

Fairest Diana: an Epitaph for Princess Diana
by Michael R. Burch

Fairest Diana, princess of dreams,
born to be loved and yet distant and lone,
why did you linger?so solemn, so lovely?
an orchid ablaze in a crevice...

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Picturebook Princess

for Keira

We had a special visitor.
Our world became suddenly brighter.
She was such a charmer!
Such a delighter! 

With her sparkly diamond slippers
and the way her whole being glows,
Keira’s a picturebook princess
from the points of her...

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"The Will to Survive" 

It was a peaceful time
back then in the dreams
that were once 
our prepossessing future.

sands of time 
dragged under our bare feet 
while the crystal clean warm ocean
of life that once was,...

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The burial ground,  groomed to greet
the gatherers of their love apocalypse
with garlands grown and sown
from the rose fire of Athena's throne,
on this day they come to mourn
the Poet who perished for the passion of...

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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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Many-colored and candle-lights; high beyond the soft trees a fresh country leans heavily toward the night, far beyond the sea’s shady shore.

Beams, o’er wide fields like a white star, \till from the earth’s crown drops...

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In the embrace of the unseen moment, love bloomed humbly,
The cosmos writhes in ecstasy, beneath the unconstructed gaze of mastery.
Gathered around it are emissions of time, transmissions of ancestral eternities,
Reveries in water strokes, heavenly reflections,...

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A GLIMPSE OF HERITAGE

To Visit the past, is to understand your future.

The storm was moving away, the noise no longer pounding,
Sky turned blue from dark, thunder abating, hail disappearing,
I took refuge under a bridge during...

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A fat flat packed duck billed platypus was not on a platter. In fact it had escaped under a robe. With a robin. The robin was to be stuffed into a pigeon which was stuffed...

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Children's Poems III

These are poems for children and poems about children and their mothers, fathers, grandmother, grandfathers and extended families. 



Picturebook Princess
by Michael R. Burch

for Keira

We had a special visitor.
Our world became suddenly brighter.
She was...

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Typing teddies talk. Their furry hands have great speeds over keys. Perfectly adjusted to any form of typewriter, word processor, laptop and keyboards, or the modern computer touch screens. They work so well that Mr...

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Our English Rose
by Michael R. Burch

for Christine Ena Burch

The rose is—
the ornament of the earth,
the glory of nature,
the archetype of the flowers,
the blush of the meadows,
a lightning flash of beauty.

This is my translation of ancient...

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If I am Syrian, what of it?
Stranger, we all dwell in one world, not its portals.
The same original Chaos gave birth to all mortals.
—Meleager translation by Michael R. Burch

Love, how can I call on you;
does...

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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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Excitedly we travelled to the fair.
   As fragrant scents of flowers filled the air.
   Dawns gift of light showing sights enthralling.
   Dewdrops mirror, broken pearlstrings falling.
   Sunshine...

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