Long Gravestones Poems

Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

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Villanelles

The villanelle is a poetic form based on repetition, with a double refrain. 



Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day, 
with the...

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Part 1: FORE SIBERIAN FATE

silk wings wet -
angel on the lake.
starlight glitter
separates from

the golden wheat.
her docile hair,
prophecy of ice.

winter pink,
pinched cheeks.
ice skate scrapes -
flecks of flakes.

the snow queen
before her relentless
reign, a pretty thing.

her smile warms
the...

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Femme Fatale By A Wishing Well 
  (In The Wastelands Of War)

Warm as breath on placid skin,
Soft as gentle summer rains,
Loud as natures angry clouds
That gather in ambushed lanes,
To confer with the wounded boys
Whose...

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This is my translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's second elegy from his Duino Elegies, which he began composing at Duino Castle in 1912. 

Second Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

Every angel...

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Exclusive Birth Rights

I am German and guilty as charged by history and evil parental culpability
privileged by life and proxy thus I refuse to forget ancestral perpetration
though I propose without any diminution that systematic genocide is...

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Elegy to Child Lost


                               ...

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Several years of my childhood I spent with my aunt and uncle
who lived in an old rectory in Northern Norway
It was a hard time, much work, little food never time for play or entertainment
My aunt...

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Can blackwater lilies 
sing forth sonnets 
of daylight and 
unsung those 
cacophonous notes 
of omen, which 
rhymed with 
sombre elixir 
of spruce rivulets and 
veiled your crimson 
touch of life, 
in eons of unforgivable 
death?...

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There will be two resurrections
The first one is holy,
will it include you?
There will be two risings
     in the valley of dry bones
Which one will you awaken to?
The first resurrection
is reserved for...

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The haunted house of fun and bones
Is spooky amongst the old gravestones.
The full moon shines, strange creatures groan.
This is no place to be alone.

The paintings watch as we walk up the stairs,
Passing suites of armour....

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Sitting on the rooftop, wavy hair billowing
In the wicked wind, fluttering away like herself
She clasps to her neck the silvery heart-locket
Before looking down from her shady alcove
She has no more time to waste, and, deciding...

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It is cold here, in this waiting place...this place where tears belong
Behind the gates, the iron locks...where sinking headstones dwell               ...

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That afternoon at Highgate
When my life had paused awhile, 
Old graves and headstones greeted 
With their sad and forlorn smile.

Smirched epitaphs stared at me
My call they wanted to know, 
Though vowed in pensive silence
With the...

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Man so mighty and wise
still has to define this
that another living being's life
has the same value as his 

Boasted, brazened
written in stone
raised above 
these highest places 
where power reigns
crushing down  
in white 
clenched fists
gripping...

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FICTIONAL EMOTIVE WRITE

Since I was a tiny baby I was brought up by my grandparents and had a very happy childhood. I knew that they were not my real parents but they gave me such...

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Predator drone recording:- 6.00am
 
The dawn sky dramatic 
Multi-coloured in rainbow array
Mutating flares of crimson reds
One portent Wednesday.

Overhead the predator drone motionless
Metallic silver it's planed wings
and tip pointed nose

Alarming to view it's presence 
Though reassuring...

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we all have our ups and downs
enjoyed in lesser detail on the upswing
and greater granularity on the corresponding
and subsequent regress to various terrors
the trick is to not obsess and get conned
into the notion of a...

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Why of all souls, you had to be the chosen one,
But without you, these verses would have never seen the light of day.
You’ve stolen a shard of my essence, now shackled in the cuffs of...

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A dream made possible from a sprinkle of stardust 
Cleanse your soul and dip in a vanilla bath tub 
Bath in the springs trankled transparent waters warmth and feel your spirit rise from the pool...

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knew a man who went to 
cemeteries &
he took photos of the gravestones---
while this is most certainly
not a unique way of finding serenity,
it is one that brings to light
the affinity of the dead,
for there, this...

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a young man with tounge lashed and lunch packed/
heading to a regiment, sprung on one flag/
swearin to fight till his own lungs crack/
preparin for life cuz he won't come back/
attached to the loud sound of...

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Raven was Death. She dwelt in death. She lived on death. Ages past, she had worn 
the blue-black, purple, feathers of the raven and dined on royalty at Tower hill. A 
tumble from grace had...

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The shaded lane leads to the estuary
and mud banks sculpted by the constant sea,
expose their drying backs beneath the sun
before once more in ebb and flow are gone.
 
Over a sty a path leads from...

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They worked at the same place,
A place of no space,
Always running into each other they did,
Bottled crushes, with a tight lid,
Asked out, 
Joy shout,
Lovely first date,
Neither were late,
10 months, moved in together,
Hope as light as...

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