Long Gaunt Poems

Poems about Adam, Eve, Lucifer

Eden
by Michael R. Burch

Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone, unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat?
Fruit indecently sweet,
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma...



Outcasts
by...

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No Mark
by Michael R. Burch

A wave implodes, 
impaled upon
impassive rocks...

this evening
the thunder of the sea
is a wild music filling my ear...

you are leaving
and the ungrieving
winds demur...

telling me
that nothing returns
as it was before...

here where you have...

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Enough!
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that I don’t want to die;
I shall be glad to go.
Enough of diabetes pie,
and eating sickly crow!
Enough of win and place and show.
Enough of endless woe!

Enough of suffering and vice!
I’ve...

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Poems about Things that Break II
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter.
 
 
 
Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch
 
You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower...

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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems (I)

These are poems about World War II and the Holocaust, which is also called the Shoah in Hebrew. 



Epitaph for a Child of the Holocaust
by Michael R. Burch

I...

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These are prophetic poems and apocalyptic poems ...



The Vision of the Overseer’s Right Hand
by Michael R. Burch

“Dust to dust ...”

I stumbled, aghast,
into a valley of dust and bone
where all men become,
at last, the same color...

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Starlight and Moonlight II

These are poems about starlight and moonlight, moons and stars, dreams and visions, illuminations and intimations …




Deliver Us...
by Michael R. Burch 

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The night is dark and scary—
under...

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as the PROPHETS of profits, WE lead and WE’re fair
while WE’re living the life of the poor BILLIONAIRE
– silver yachts, pearly castles, cash (plenty to spare) –
with the world on OUR backs... ah! the burdens...

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Freed from my mind
I escape it
I end time
I think it
I think nothing of it
I believe in you
I believe in the American Dream
I think of it
I think nothing
I know you are something
How is it found 
Where...

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No One
by Michael R. Burch

No One hears the bells tonight;
they tell him something isn’t right.
But No One is not one to rush;
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls...

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I see this ulcer
Mind boggling in perception
Body arresting in phenomena
Of diverse shapes and designs
Magnificently wrought together
In one whiff of putrid scent
It is of an exotic nature
Magnanimously growing out of context
Thus ticking with apocalyptic dimensions ...

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His reverie ended as he was brought back to reality when he stepped into a patch of deep fresh snow and promptly fell face down in a hollow on the leeward side of a boulder....

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Christ!
A warparty of 60 Shoshone warriors has just stampeded into the meadow
faces painted red and white for blood and death, all sorts of strange designs,
bows and arrows ready to fly on us, skull breaking cudgels...

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VERNANS PAIN              
 
                  ...

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A combination of Prose and Free Verse:

The most thrilling and inspirational piece of music ever to reach my 
ears is, without doubt, Handel's Messiah. I've never known anyone 
who could experience a performance and remain...

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PTSD

Like rabbit in the headlight caught
I want to move, i know I ought
But quicksand stuck, I’m petrified 
My body still, arms laid by side
Stretched out on mattress, naked, soaked
From sweat in which my body’s cloaked
My eyes...

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I put to you a tale of two sheep
tepidly beside themselves with fraught.
Now who was who and which was which...
It simply matters not.
But suffice to say, they were both dismayed
For the amelioration they both sought.

So...

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Do not vainly look in those remote
Places,
That, once, were acquainted with a 
Small part of me;                   ...

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What say you naive with all your poultice,
                     foolish fervor to your reverie!?”
“Mark me damned...

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My Halloween party was in full swing. I had gone all out this year and rented an old crumbling, reputed-to-be haunted mansion for the evening's Dionysian festivities, and all the invited guests were present and...

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World War 1 

The Sergeant

The rose cannot compete
with the sweet smell of death,
only her image can forgive.
 Laid upon the silence
of another boys coffin,
which hides this journey in life.

Your shame will not bring him back.
So...

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A sodden dreg with wooden leg is dancing for a dime,

to sacred psalms and other balms, all ticking with the time.

He’s 22, he’s almost through, he’s melted in his prime,

his bane is firm, the canker...

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He was a leprechaun who wore a silly shamrock hat
He incessantly counted golden coins by day, as he lazily sat
For a tiny fellow his belly had grown dangerously fat
He paid no mind, " Can you...

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.    It mars the sage, erect and proud
     Beneath a hood of purple clouds...              ...

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Back then, I’d never heard of Robinson Jeffers. My friend told us he was a famous poet and Tor House was where he lived with his family for much of his life. Definitely a stop...

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