Long Guardrails Poems

WHEN The WIND COMES DOWN LONG LAKE in OCTOBER 
 
(1 AM in the morning  -  Naples, Maine)

When unseasonable lake water balm 
meets you tripping out of Ricks’ Café 
after midnight
you know those...

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These are poems about war and defenses.



Defenses
by Michael R. Burch

Beyond the silhouettes of trees
stark, naked and defenseless
there stand long rows of sentinels:
these pert white picket fences.

Now whom they guard and how they guard,
the good Lord...

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I write some poems, they're not too deep 
but my best ideas come when driving or asleep 

Driving. 
I often have an out of body chuckle 
watching the eureka moment of my mind-blowing idea
one hand...

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Object to crave
hands off me
i find myself
looking at the keys in the stars in my space
warlords of times of slavery
tortured innocents
never ending labour for underpaid children
smelling burnt flesh
because someone taught her how to swim

he came
we...

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the sun exposed
above mountain's edge
through the folds
of dawn's rise
carmine sky erupts
mimicking fire
that burns beneath

in the crisp morning 
the earth gasps in breaths
of pallid air
as it rises from the cracks
of asphalt and dirt
the smell of sulfur...

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GUARDRAILS ON SCARY ROADS

We all can drive some scary roads that I have often seen,
They’re full of hills and sharpest curves, not smooth and so serene.
One thing I’ve noticed on some roads that really caused...

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Dry eyes open at counter gambling a quarter at a time, looking up to see beauty out of corner smiling. She says hi, iced up stunned could fathom flight. Sigh slightly, love little known ‘bout...

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The Seine river banks,
with their lack of guardrails, freaked
me out in fourth grade:

"Avez-vous entendu?!!"
My best friend rushed to ask it.
"Did you hear?! (the news)"

A woman drowned!!
She gushed - the horror tale
punch line delivered.

My eyes were...

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Trying to ride the sunshine
as it bends a winding road
at the end i'm hoping to find
a pathway paved with gold
where the truth is all but too kind
.......the only version told,
God's healin to my souls mind
as...

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I try to establish strong mental footholds
In resemblance to fort knox physical strongholds
Through repentance I lost the spiritual blindfold
So every sentence I mock material billfolds

I seek an understanding of answers beyond the proven
Discreet but demanding...

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And so it goes. Seated, contemplative. A sudden cacophony abiding. Many floods ebb then flow; good/bad. Memories distilled, truth distorts. Folly found fair ‘gainst fear flames fanned. Shame ignorance opened, book bound veracity logged. Guardrails...

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THE MOST DANGEROUS ROADS

i've got the head of a rattle snake
on the front end of my hood
i've got a chilled clorox drink
in my steel-knuckled hand
and we're rolling down I-10 
across the stretch between Phoenix
to the...

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Rancho la Joya stretches out for miles
the horses are gone--but not the corrals
with a black dog named Boo, who watches it all
from late in the evening to every breaking dawn

one silver horse is all that...

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A patch of dried grass at the side of the road
Rusty guardrails crumbling erosion
A patch of berries a diet for deer
Thankful dinner for their born for a year
Leaves now yellow some orange, many dead
Dried veins...

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over the Hudson River, its heights
my nemesis. I longed to drive
and stay alive. Highland
on the other side. Mid-Hudson
thrill ride for a permitted driver.
my heart would pound
just looking at the gothic steel
and the watergrave - my...

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