Long Graceless Poems

I was touring the lovely countryside, once on a golden Saturday,
Lost within the raptures, of languid summertime's scenic display.

And I came into the vicinity, of a beautiful historic old home,
So being curious and interested, inside...

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He said he planned to freeze to death.

Did he mean to have his body frozen?
Stored to hatch again later,
leftovers out of time's deep freezer of waiting.

No, not that.
He responds with undeniable dismissal,
this would not be...

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“The Lazarus Heart”



In the moment 
time stops:
suspended; seen
in solitary confinement
the heart of a soul
silent light weighted 
in the dark, rebellious
is the meaning of a name
Mary waits four days
in the flux
The Lazarus Heart
kick starts bedevilled 
by...

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Poems for Poets X
Poems about Poets X



Sinking
by Michael R. Burch

for Virginia Woolf

Weigh me down with stones ...
   fill all the pockets of my gown ...
      I’m going down,
...

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Various Heresies 11



The beauty of the flower fades,
its petals wither to charades...
—Michael R. Burch



the U-turn poem
by michael r. burch

Life so defaulty,
Life so unfair,
why do wee prize U,
what do U care?

LORD who lets unborns
drown in a...

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Sappho, fragment 118
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Sing, my sacred tortoiseshell lyre;
come, let my words
accompany your voice.

"Quoted by Hermogenes and Eustathius. Sappho is apparently addressing her lyre. The legend is that Hermes made the first...

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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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Various Heresies 10



God to Man, Contra Bataan
by Michael R. Burch

Earth, what-d’ya make of global warming?
Perth is endangered, the high seas storming.
Now all my creatures, from maggot to man
Know how it felt on the march to...

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I am in love.
I do not “do” love. I feel it. It pulses through me, hard, and blurs my vision. 

It gifts me with the graceless two left feet, and then, 

I find myself staring,...

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"Petrichor "



Two minds 
have made an entrance
magnetic bodies electric
minions babble 
it’s just wasted white noise
sandpaper against back stories hit
The Wall of Wasted Time
He’s read most between the lines
He’s all hard hot and cool
unruffled piercing eagle...

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You were an alcoholic, my mother says, 
Fixing me with her timid tear-watered gaze – 
You lived in paradise, on the wings of angels, 
And you were an alcoholic…
So we had to take you away...

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With these winds of July ever sweeping the earth,
How should I follow the footprints of men that believed that no man shall auction another?
... Here, dawns are graceless, birds are no longer early to chirp...

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The  sky has lost its image of beauty, 
And the fading air is all you can see
When the soul of your spirit rest in cave
Inside the furnace of terrorism

How will you ascend in this...

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Observing. 
Frozen in time,
captivated by this enormous being,
the size of a small car.

Pondering, 
his every move.
The way he used his hands;
so child-like.
With all the consciousness of the world, 
and graceless coordination.

Aware.
of the visitors,
as they briefly...

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It's crazy how we as humans debate these great things
We brave situations daily, with masks on, we hate this
Everyday the same thing, and instead of searchin'
For greatness and we become complacent servants
On a day to...

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The narrowing of choice, opaque or black?
Unconfident die castes vote ballot blank,
How has our circus bread become this bland?
What a diverse homogeneous blend,
All stitched to sleeves but less with blood to bleed,
Philosophy’s deep silenced sonar...

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The sun blowtorches its way into the water, 
fragments, and the bottom is an aqua sky 
webbed by white-hot lightning. 

Here and there, legs hang like halved mannequins 
disappearing into a squiggly-bright ceiling, 
through which...

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Part 1 - Unforgiveable

Beyond all rhyme and reason
Utterly beyond the pale
To be denounced in any season
A complete and utter FAIL

Eleven million watched in awe
Some driven to rage and shock
So many scarred by what they saw
But...

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Wura woke up into a world 
so weary and worthless,
in a home that has got no 
hand for the helpless,
he has nothing to hold 
unto, so he remained 
hopeless,
one day he forfieted his 
family for...

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O tiny, dimpled sphere, virginal white,  
Whooshing on your preordain-ed flight:     
What motivates your Lord to curses spew  
When you've done naught but to his swing be true? ...

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O Lord, I bring not calf nor my first child,
My palms are empty and my pride is hollow.
Leaves have fallen with this winter that has walked
the face of this earth to find a hermitage in...

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GOD'S GIFTS

God’s gifts to me,
You see
Is more than just an inconsequential thing,
I’m held to accountable be,
In what has be entrusted
And invested into my life’s stages,
‘twas not evident at an early age in time,
For I had...

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This charade of life’s routine
Is fading the glory and tarnishing dreams
Humiliated in public and organised
Filling in forms, taking on form to survive
Our freedom stripped, our minds untangled
Living a dream of a nation in chains
Crossing Mountains...

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Old Women

Old women are forgotten wombs
whose graceless bodies have fed
the word, then been sent
to sit in its shadow
not quite seen, not acknowledged,
not nurtured

They are more patient than God

Old women are crucified
with nails of oppression and...

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In aquamarine ran off my warmth traversing 
mild meadows with swallows of ash 
past the pink sunset 

Three cherry cardinals swooped past partly pleased 
the brook trickled near 

Evading were than icon imaginings 
the following...

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