Long Grate Poems

Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then...

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     by how many badbyes can you measure the length of your day

                 first comes...

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It gradually turned chilly between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Although Frosty the Snowman rarely visited our part of Texas, his pal, Jack Frost, surely did.  He wafted his way through the drafty house, chased by...

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SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 1 : Number Four


Many chains, many locks and bars
clattered at four in the morning 
black bitter coffee drugged
a single bucket of cold water 
         ...

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PRINCESS DIANA POEMS

Fairest Diana: an Epitaph for Princess Diana
by Michael R. Burch

Fairest Diana, princess of dreams,
born to be loved and yet distant and lone,
why did you linger?so solemn, so lovely?
an orchid ablaze in a crevice...

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Note: this is the 2nd HALF of this piece, a little too long to post as one poem, sorry. If you enjoy story-poems, it's definitely worth the read, believe me. (Or the "listen".)


“We learned of...

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Moe
Larry
Curly

Shep 
Joe

This Three-Fifth Stooges moron quartet
are brain-slow slugs you don’t wanna IQ know

Just sitting on a milk crate,
waiting outside of the MGM studio gate
Moe, Larry and Curly passed my way

They were yukking it up,
talking clown...

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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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Hidden beauty resides not in the grace like charms
Of coy smiles 
Painted across a gentle Madonnas face.
Nor is she vested within the chastened vows
Of saintly knights; encased Great-Helm:
Thus maketh the pale maidens meek pulse
To so...

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Every summer Mother’s folks would take us to their cabin. ‘Twas neither big nor fancy. Had no furnace. No TV! 
The cistern pump beside the sink was all there was for plumbing. So primitive…and yet...

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Humus me? My vegetated chokes ingest!
(jokes all in jest)

Hard to believe, I orange in a lee
started life as barely visible speck!

Just in the course of healthy growing
season, this former minute nearly
microscopic entity developed into
quite pleasing...

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Cherry Tree Music Co-op

alternately titled instant infatuation: 
a moment of spontaneous spunk
instantaneously transformed 
ordinarily shy guy into a quidnunc
courtesy powder milk biscuits
inside his mouth 
bitesize morsels did plunk
wafted courtesy pheromones 
found him punchdrunk
reclusive tendencies bubbled...

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It seems a shame that you're not here
To share my evening stroll with me, 
As I walk down this gravel road
That takes off just outside of town.
Two pheasants flush from bar ditch pools
(The grassy soup...

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(For Competition 'And then I opened THAT door', sponsor- John Lawless)


My relationship had broken down, when love ran out of gas
so down life's dark and lonely road I dragged my sorry ass.
Could have done with...

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Cherry Tree Music Co-op
(Saint Mary's Church -
3916 Locust Walk; City)
(Circa mid nineteen nineteen eighties
after the common lee
washed out tide dull era - CODA).

Naughty bits and pieces asper
     an uneventful memory came...

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I will turn back the pages of my life to when I was just
a little girl on a bright sunny summer day .  . . 

It was all Teddy Bears idea to take Marmalade...

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”.... taste me….”

tell me how
in a keystroke
to make you come…

~ dripp
into me

”...with a devil’s tongue…”

suck it!

I’m undone!
and HOW
dare you
came!
don’t run
now coward
it’s ME…
your game
shreds a fabric
to burn a name

”...I want fire….”

eyes
flashed sin
seeking out
what’s really been
known
for all...

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I will turn back the pages of my life to when I was just
a little girl on a bright sunny summer day .  . . 

It was all Teddy Bears idea to take Marmalade...

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Sargasso
..by D Johnson
Fourteen days adrift time slowly slipped 
on the good ship Cavalier 
Becalmed, morose, no water they sipped 
drank rum to calm their fear 
The fog was thick o'er water and ship 
On the...

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SPOT THE HOMONYMS 
For the Homonyms are full of spots!

We were young and wore black
During the war we were under attack
We wear bright clothes now
Where were we?
I thought we were the prey
But now where do...

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Irritatingly often unnecessarily compliant
to the whims of those about him
endlessly wordlessly wondering
about the many demented subjective qualities
of our ever present mammalian imperative via
a thought balloon filled with candy and bullets
that lingers menacingly overhead
announcing the death...

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There are many pig-type stories,
Mostly told in piggy fables.
Most are cheerful little characters,
With "Happy Endings" in their labels.

Let's start with 'Porky Pig' cartoon,
S-s-s-stammering pig of Looney-Tune fame.
It's here I'll mention other pigs,
Because all pigs are...

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(Part 3 of 4)

& The Bible Goes So Far As To Give "Specific Signs & Dates"
Not Some Vague Illusion Construed After The Fact Culminates
But Bible Prophecies Came True, Come On Time & Never Late
Its Documented...

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Joe Cocker: Born: 1944-05-20 - Died: 2014-12-22
A Woodstock discover
While singing a cover
With a Little Help from My Friends
And it was a shocker
To find that Joe Cocker
Gravelly voice finally ends

Ken Weatherwax: Born 1955-9-29Died:2014-12-7
Pugsley Adams was my...

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Circa: 23rd of Tevet, 5760
     to 15th of Tevet, 5770
     in accordance
     with Hebrew date
(converted, asper Gregorian
     Calendar) courtesy...

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