Long Guard Poems

For ten months now I’ve brooded over coming second place
in the pickle section deeming, it no less than a disgrace.
It was written plain and simple, so there can be no excuse,
that the pickles in this...

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When I was a child
Everything was magical
Full of mystery and the unknown
I read hundreds of books
The library my haven
My home
Hours upon hours
Night and day
I read and got lost in text
They supplied me with adventures
Secret journeys
Fun...

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"The Messenger"

Love is rich with 
venom and honey. 

there was a female ...

snake, 
it watched 
with green-eyed 
avarice, covetting
a dove’s nest

the dove, 
was white as snow, 
not young, getting on,
tiny flecks of grey

the dove 
alone,...

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Matthew delivers his latest bullet – tin...

from the Harris-Walz front
where liberal minded socially progressive
electorate doth agonizingly grunt
targeted in crosshairs scoped out 
eager and ready to be mortally wounded 
courtesy notorious big headed 
(and bigoted) infamous...

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If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.
-Michael R. Burch

*

Willy Nilly
Michael R. Burch

Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, Willy...

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Willy Nilly
by Michael R. Burch

for the Demiurge aka Yahweh and Jehovah 

Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
 
Isn’t it...

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Lady’s Favor
by Michael R. Burch

May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leave us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but her thorn.


The...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VI



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee
and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold
when I awoke.

She came to me with the sound...

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"The Book of Changes"

Thoughts arrived before words,
1000s of years before
the crossing of curves

always seen to be 
swimming upstream 
against the current

thoughts … and feelings,
in the flow, always arrive 
before words, they are cast 

in the...

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Winter
by Michael R. Burch

The rose of love's bright promise
lies torn by her own thorn;
her scent was sweet
but at her feet
the pallid aphids mourn.

The lilac of devotion
has felt the winter hoar
and shed her dress;
companionless,
she shivers—nude, forlorn.

Published...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems X

These are early poems written in my teens and twenties.

Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear...

once starlight
languished
in your hair...

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret,
a pain
I chose to bear...

unleash
the torrent
of your hair...

and show me
once...

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Beckoning
by Michael R. Burch 
 
Yesterday the wind whispered my name
while the blazing locks
of her rampant mane
lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday
I saw the way
the wind caressed tall pines
in forests laced by glinting streams
and thick with...

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To a Daughter More Precious than Gems
by Otomo no Sakanoue no Iratsume
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Heaven's cold dew has fallen—
and thus another season arrives.
Oh, my child living so far away,
do you pine for me...

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*warning* disturbing lines have been detected - you have been warned, readers. Okay, enjoy this somewhat deep and astounding poem from me that took days to write...>:)

I bet you anything that I'm the laziest guy...

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Once upon a weedy lawn
At Cedar Oaks Retirement Home
There sat my mother, weak and old
On an afghan knit to block the cold.

It was summer, but in mom's grey eyes
Was winter, when all around us dies.
I...

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How the Nation of Islam saved my granddaughter 
from Catrina Bell queen pin gang leader it was a warm 
day i was suffering from traumatic brain injury raising 
five children including my granddaughter only four...

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The soul of the earth is wrapped up inside
And the spirit of God is walking beside me
The universe rests upon my shoulder
And I can feel its power moving all over
embracing the soul of man
And causing...

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THE INNER CHAMBER

Please.  Stop holding back on me.

Like a child standing at the neighborhood ice cream truck, arm outstretched, eyes huge, mouth watering.

I stand here longing to slip underneath your decades of cold-rolled steel...

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Nowhere Else To Go

Welcome to Israel: Land of Hope.1
(The land of Zion and Jerusalem.)2
Where prophets walked and prophesied,
For their God, our God:
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.3

And the Lord spoke to Abram, and he...

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 A French ‘Indianist’ Doctor: A Tribute to a Die-hard Humanist
                         ...

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My stalker arrived ripping our flag crawling over veterans memorial plaques aiming through an assault rifle from across the street her anniversary of the murder meant to end my life 20 years later in shambles...

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If ever a moment in real life deserved a romantic, melancholy
backing track, it would have been that one ... we'd spent the
entire afternoon at Ferry Beach, sunning and playing frisbee, I
playing guitar, she practicing her...

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Be Embarrased by Arms

The right of a person to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed upon when in a
well-regulated militia necessary for the security of a free state. In other words, if 
you...

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"Sentenced to hang in the town of Lincoln,
Billy made his bold escape.
Both of his guards died from thinking,
that a shackled young boy couldn't break away."

I've often wondered what thoughts were going through his head
as he...

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Additional free advice to those* who would be King from the THIRUK-KURAL with Commentary
[*like presidents, prime ministers, dictators of declining (falling or fallen) nations or even empires]

K442: urranOy niikki uraa amai munkaakkum
   ...

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