Long Gauntlet Poems

Lady’s Favor
by Michael R. Burch

May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leave us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but her thorn.


The...

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Winter
by Michael R. Burch

The rose of love's bright promise
lies torn by her own thorn;
her scent was sweet
but at her feet
the pallid aphids mourn.

The lilac of devotion
has felt the winter hoar
and shed her dress;
companionless,
she shivers—nude, forlorn.

Published...

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Nucleotidings
by Michael R. Burch

“We will walk taller!” said Gupta,
sorta abrupta,
hand-in-hand with his mom,
eyeing the A-bomb.

“Who needs a mahatma
in the aftermath of NAFTA?
Now, that was a disaster,”
cried glib Punjab.

“After Y2k,
time will spin out of control anyway,”
flamed...

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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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Act 2. A dark, empty stage.

Marat
(standing up)

It's all a blur. It’s all a little dizzy. 
I just have dreamed a scary dream as if 
two vagabond philosophers robbed me
and killed. I must admit it's a...

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This is the 1st half of a pretty long piece, the 2nd half, as usual, is @ "poems by Mark Stellinga" on the Soup...


OK everybody…could I please have your attention? 
I’ve got some real important...

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The Edges of Rhyme 

I wrote the playbook, watching what they took 
While the earth shook I could not look 
In the direction of the Big Book 
Like a fish caught on a nasty hook...

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"White the Lowest Sky"



Cries the Lowest Sky 
tear drops fed as manna
o’er the littlest warrior 
face raised to ultra Light

The 3
that sit in Ultra Gamma
there cries the lowest Sky
the voice that ever hears you

Cries the...

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6 miles up river Arikara are encountered,
they are a people of amenable disposition and are agrarians,
they chuckle with sympathy as we inform them of our grizzly confrontation
and they tell us that disease had forced them...

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Okay. So, according to her license plate, Sarah had something to do with the name “Welbeck Street” and had once asked if the Journal would consider using “Harvard Yard” in her name. Also according to...

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Ghostly spirits from deadly arsenal spell haunting annihilation

With mighty mouse and Hercules height 
tried to retrieve sanity spread loose;
a faded unpleasant memory - even enlisting
decades old cartoon characters: 
Natasha squirrel and Bullwinkle moose
flow of electrons...

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I see an angel fly across the sky.
She stops and haloes Rigel,
    and looks down upon me,
         with answers I already knew.

Have you come...

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With lone intent, all freedom it will wrest
if obstinance you let these wolves deny.
As tonnage sinks beneath the torrid crest
your struggles for survival magnify.
Each flailing ship that ferries surety
is fodder for the fathoms of abyss.
Their...

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?? A Living Dead I'm ??


©?Abdul Qudus Olamilekan Yisa.

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Like an appearance of a full moon's fall,

the light of her love illuminated my heart,

in the presence of no light, which was once nightfall.

and like a grumble...

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You’re nothing, but scum
You’re nothing, but waste
You’re nothing, but trash
You’re nothing, but lies.

Loathing around the house
Ear stuck to the phone
Keeping dirty secrets 
Vanishing half the day.

A hollow shell of a man
A hollow shell of a...

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His restless wolves still taunt each dauntless ship,
though sly attrition neutralized their hunt,
for subterfuge let not a whisper slip
as vantage shifted on the battlefront.
A riddle solved unveiled the raging packs
as alpha domination was denied.
The murky...

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(This is all just my opinion,
what I glean from the internet,
Mainstream News, and my imagination – 
do your own research.  If there is any
truth in my observations, this write will
definitely not make me a...

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Friendly pirate wannabe flies his Jolly Roger...
while surfing cyber seas today March 2nd, 2021.

Actually yours truly quite a literate codger
(ah shucks just missed being draft dodger)
no not for baseball team, but Vietnam War
circa November 1,...

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Far from having a nascent thought that envelops my rabid self,
Like inside of an accurate Swiss watch that had been given -
A present to presidents and diplomats from the 70’s era,
Memories in the kaleidoscope of...

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what do you need to be told
to make you capable of pragmatic liberation
which could be the foundation to a new
assessment of the inevitable
darkness is our measure but never our limit
its manic prism reflects everything all...

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at some point in your life a wrong was done to you
and you want to pay someone back for all the hurt that you've accrued
but to go on a mission of vengeance and do a...

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the heavens had fallen 
woe coiled about the earth
excuse my very own tangent world of merriment
you never know what you're going to dream about
one foot in the past the other on the gas
while his muse...

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I'm a poet of life, so read if you 
dare. But let me forewarn you, 
you're in for a scare. 
   For I don't see life, for the 
light it portrays. I see life in the...

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It's closing time, I'm sad to say.
The clock insists it's after five.
Now comes the hardest part of day,
The long, infernal homeward drive.

I leave my job and peace behind
And hit the highway as before,
To traffic tie-ups...

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"Super Hero"



Krypto Knighted
Disrobed Le Penseur 
contemplates strength
a royal monk disrobing within
Rodin begins to think
new dreams dialled in
naked vulnerability begins
hiding behind dark angel wings
pinned between the box-cadged 
dimensions of a glass onion
black crows waiting along the...

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