Long Glimpsed Poems

They were gambling in front of the house.
Manservants and pages bustled about
Serving Suitors who just curse and carouse.
Few mix wine with water. I heard one shout,
"Clean down the tables with wet sponges! Rouse
Yourselves! And when...

Read More

Rejection Slips 2

The Shape of Mourning
by Michael R. Burch
 
The shape of mourning
is an oiled creel
shining with unuse,
 
the bolt of cold steel
on a locker
shielding memory,

the monthly penance
of flowers,
the annual wake,
 
the face in the...

Read More

The first soft snow: 
leaves of the awed jonquil 
bow low
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness! 
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray...

Read More

Dusk-gliding swallow, 
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers! 
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A bee emerging
from deep within the peony's hairy recesses
flies off, sated
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

That dying cricket,...

Read More

Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
—Yamaguchi Seishi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
—Takaha Shugyo, translation by Michael R. Burch

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow...

Read More

Various Heresies 4

I, Lazarus
by Michael R. Burch

I, Lazarus, without a heart,
devoid of blood and spiritless,
lay in the darkness, meritless:
my corpse?a thing cold, dead, apart.

But then I thought I heard?a Voice,
a Voice that called me from...

Read More

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...

Read More

Here he stands, Edwardian vogue, sometimes with his spats, 
sometimes with his brogues below his dungarees. With rounded collar points and tie, and jacket donned below this flying suit, his waste is tied with simple...

Read More

Pellucid pachyderms wade across
the purpling River Manjees
and Tozzath watches from the bank, 
the seat of his maroon pantaloons soaked with mud,
his nostrils flaring with the fragrance of ombadalias,
whose lacey petals flutter
like the wings of long-dead...

Read More

I wondered how that I could be a child of the King.
A long lost soul, I had no goal, but to maybe act and sing.
I believed in Jesus, a man of love,
But scared to death...

Read More

Toddlers' Exploration: 

Cardboard drum, a thunderous beast,
Playful roars in tiny fists and feasts.
Fleeting wings glide, dreams just out of reach,
Soaring through tales of barnyard Waddles and Squeaks,
Moo! Quack! Giggles tumble and bump.
Flaps flapping, bright colors...

Read More

"Fraudulent"



A writer writes of people 
walking lonely dark streets
begging for bread, shelter and cold without all

like he’s been there
trudging up and downhill knocking on doors 
that judgmentally remain closed after glimpsed twigging -

a monumental fail,...

Read More

It was late in the balmy springtime, and I was attending a lecture,
On a topic of great interest, which was the history of architecture.

As a great lover of beauty, I admired structural geometric designs,
Like the...

Read More

While returning home from my job, in bustling New York City,
The blaring horns of traffic, and the noise were getting to me.

With loud yelling on the sidewalks, and cawing crows up above,
And my poor aching...

Read More

Much has been felt
then written
about loneliness at the top

Less written,
yet perhaps far more often felt,
about claustrophobia in the center.

Problems with delegation,
boundaries,
predictable timelines,
responsive management focus,
follow through performance,
closeted partisanship,
competitions to be heard
listened to
appreciated
respected 
for our therapeutic,
and not...

Read More

Alice, did th' afternoon grow long an' dull; 
As your older sister did read an' mull? 
While in your mind, boredom grew- 
That you'd grown restless no one knew! 
That's what came before th' fall-...

Read More

Nineveh *
*Deep I have fallen 
    eyelids leaden with sleep
       just a hole to crawl in 
         and...

Read More

Our lives and our time
Fired useless
Into the air
Toy cap gun shots
Those winter palaces unstormed
No tax offices ransacked
Where is utopia I asked
And no-one knew
They looked at me with pity
As if I still talked
To an imaginary friend
At...

Read More

Clutching the moment 
Before yesterday became yesterday,
The promise,
Before he pledged his love to me,
The colors,
Before autumn waltzed away, 
Swaying in shadows of soft snowfall,
Breathing white, plunging into the thought,
A blizzard erasing the gentle flames,
Sheltered by...

Read More

I was rehearsing for an upcoming play, but it wasn't going well,
For I somehow lacked inspiration, and my delivery did not excel.

If only I could read more feelingly, I uttered with a sad sigh,
I would...

Read More

LETTER TO A SOLDIER
A Trilogy


I.  SONGS OF LOVE

Love walked with me
In the crisp fall air
In a shower of gold and red.
Love showed me the print
Of a doe’s foot
And where she made her bed.

Love sat...

Read More

"Cry for the soul that will not face the body" Dory Previn 

                      ...

Read More

(Necessary, Sufficient – Why? How?)

Was the ‘Death of Christ’ needful? Can ‘Mind of God’ change?
Might the rainbow then signal ‘Repentance,’ a sign
God does grow and responds too, to changes wrath wrought?
Were there souls saved by...

Read More

I had never before glimpsed the sea, and I had often felt the lack,
As rainbows sense the lack of luster, so they keep on coming back.

I dwelled in a pastoral area, quite far from any...

Read More

It was the spring of ‘74 when my student peers and I
were on the tail end of a group excursion  
through southern Spain, across Gibraltar’s Strait
and into the exotic northern tip of Africa.
I remember...

Read More