Long Glints Poems

[First posted in 3 parts. Intended novel: time never allowed]

Prologue
This,  Sir, is the prologue from before our tale begins
About the day our father did succumb to mortal sins
And left behind a man who would...

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Salve
by Michael R. Burch

for the victims and survivors of 9-11

The world is unsalvageable ...
but as we lie here
in bed
stricken to the heart by love
despite war’s
flickering images,

sometimes we still touch,

laughing, amazed,
that our flesh
does not despair
of love
as...

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* For J.K. Rowling *

                 ~ 

now, deliberate your hearing
     to bring back the pages...

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It is so hard to let go of love,
lovingly.

It sharks, 
unpeels more gut more quickly
than reel or reeler ever lost
in all those years of lazy inches
in and out:
casting,
winding in and playing out,
hardly fishing, rarely catching
anything
from...

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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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The season, spring year 2031. 
One year went by and 
Delilah was 4 months pregnant 
When Molly Was 6 months 
pregnant. Other Then that, the
passed months were
Unremarkable. The ages of 
Damian's children and their 
Mother's...

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In shot snap seconds, everything changed.
The horror was sudden -
a shatter-shower of bullets
bouncing off rock.
The picnic I'd laid so carefully
blew apart - black olives
tossed into the air like fat flies,
the watermelon's pink guts splattering.

Gun aimed...

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Someone that I know has a serious affliction,
Not chemically induced though, is their addiction.
He is always needing another dose or fix
In one way or another or in ways, a mix.

Though I don't know why, how...

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Trees have never talked before
no one has ever heard tree thoughts.
As plants evolved, so did trees;
trillions and trillions appeared,
half gone now, down to three trillion.
Trees send signals through the forests;
using various chemicals
also fungi, roots and...

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A handful of stars 

In the right pocket of my trouser

Eliminating all the tsars

Inside the child of wild world

Time in a swirl

And another handful of moon pieces

Bridges and beaches

In the left pocket

My room in a...

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The sun upon my face blinds me as my boat rocks gently
through the rolling swells that lap against the hull.
The sound of the droning engine mesmerizes my mind
bringing a dreaminess to this bright cool...

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( Song of Solomon 4: 16 )



We Walked In The Garden At Midnight
We Walked Thru The Garden In Moonlight

Among Azealeas & Verbenas & Blue Jonquils
Sweet Honeysuckle, Yellow Primroses & Daffodils
Among White Phlox & Orchids &...

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No wisdom more canny than the folksome pantun’s peasant proverbials
            Wake! Monde Malais! Wake and note no Sultan whirls as a Sufi
  ...

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You wrap yourself 
in the feather boa fantasy of his dreams
sinuous you; X-rated and never sated
dancing to rock ‘n roll— 80’s dated

welcome to the conjugal jungle 
of not-so-rusted lust
sixty-something-shapely
your 25th anniversary groom
growls a naughty thought
“you...

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Foreword: Contains excepts from, and additions to, my own three part poem ‘Bone Idol’, which is way too long to submit here.

Skeleton Quay

He lingers on the quayside and heeds the phantom howls
Out on mist shrouded...

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Casting All 'My' Gods Aside!

Let us cast Gods aside if false praise buys salvation,
our actions make Grace less germane (bring us blessing),
and pride (I am ‘saved’) means I judge those who aren’t!
Let us praise God...

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Silent lake secrets of a summer’s evening
Beyond meadow’s grasses, rustled in bits of expectation
Light sparkle of reflected diamonds dance on shimmery pond 
Cool clear waters delighting the heart of Sister Raccoon and Brother Opossum

Devoted forest...

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Holding hands with Shannon Leigh
Enthrallment consuming me
Trees flex their dusk filigree
Bobbing as if they agree
Pitch blank possibility

Revel in this day's decay
Bemused I should feel this way
Summer blooms share their bouquet
Nature's splendid verve soiree
As we bask...

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Ink leaks from her veins in riddles,
Words scribbled in mirrored existence, 
Emulating and forming thoughts before breaking,
The floor is her canvas,
Her hands the brush,

She strokes his hair to the lyric of the piano,
The tune of...

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Stilled again across the canals broadening 
Girth;
Mesh cages of rock-filled Gabions 
Reinforcing patches of exposed and arid earth,
Reflecting the glints that gleefully
Twist and dance in the hot glare of the sun...
Provoking images and stirring indefinable...

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Skeleton quay - abridged for Give Me Goosebumps contest



When the sniper fired his rifle and his faithful canine fell
A second bullet found his heart and he went down as well
Might we stay together, somehow he...

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Some pretty brown birds nesting on a tree
Prank frequently at my other room balcony
Apparently, they were once the main culprits
Of messing it up, bringing a variety of leaves and twigs

They also build thin nests behind...

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Grandma’s brown knuckles crinkled 
As she gently peeled the heirloom 
Potatoes, discarding the brown-
Skinned strips into the garbage
Bin. She was at home here, alive 
And aloud, tastes and scents mingling 

In the air like wispy...

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We are born into a world of sublimated madness, calculated with the precision of a broken clock,
amid the shattered stained glass of desolate factories, where the echo of emptiness reverberates,
in taverns where silence bears the...

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Snowflakes adorn blurry morn, gently, gently trickling down 
As salted streets are turning brown across this weary town
While tilting trees blow wheeze of breeze in throe of snow
In aerial dance of wintry woe, as tips...

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