Long Halting Poems

"Who Put Luebella down the Wych Elm?"

There are rumours
about me, some 
come seeking me
with their geiger counters
and ouji boards
with their heart 
shaped planchettes

unanswered questions
in the woods, crackling
within the sounds of leaves
invisible dead things speaking 
underfoot...

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Rejection Slips 2

The Shape of Mourning
by Michael R. Burch
 
The shape of mourning
is an oiled creel
shining with unuse,
 
the bolt of cold steel
on a locker
shielding memory,

the monthly penance
of flowers,
the annual wake,
 
the face in the...

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Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching embrace,
you climb, skittish kite...

What do you know of the world’s despair,
gliding in vast solitariness there,
so that all that remains is to
fall?

Only a...

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Queen Elizabeth Alexandra Mary ll
Her seemingly eternal monarch--God has now beckoned
Balmoral Castle, reigned over the United Kingdom
"God Save The Queen" The British national anthem
21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022

“We are all visitors to this...

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It only started as a misconception, a misunderstanding
then like grass fed rain, it grew...grew into this
A eulogy, maybe this could be it
about you? For once, this is about me
How can it be...how can it be?
Dreaming,...

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The appearance of his old friend brought new thoughts of his mother and, Nordgrend, the town in which  they spent the last few years.  Raðulfr, was a truly kind man and he was...

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Once a pawn a time within castellated bishopric

We purchased 2020 Hyundai Elantra
at Enterprise Car Rental
1207 West Ridge Pike
Conshohocken, Pennsylvania 19428
April thirteenth two thousand twenty three
witnessed greatest amount of money
I spent at one time.

The following day...

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The knight of knights, Sir Lancelot,
From far away in Camelot,
Went by a way that he knew not
And thus, by chance, spied Astolat
With sunset's gleam upon her tow'rs:
T'was there he met the maid Elaine,
With hair as...

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A homeless poet

A few days ago, I was walking home with my dollar store notebook in my hand as I walked. I was deep in thought about how I was going to fill these 250...

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*There are only two damsels in this tale; all variations were simply for ease of writing.

Once Kate and Isabella went
To see the pretty fields of Gwent
And traipse through forest shade
They packed a picnic lunch for...

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My Love, my Hope, my Goddess there can be no words formed by mortal lips sufficient to proclaim the glory which lived in me the season your love bloomed so completely within my life. My...

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I used to be obsessed with fashion, caring far too much about clothes,
Like the sun whenever he's coming and going, is striking vanity's pose.

I lavished absurdly upon my wardrobe, in excess of what was practical,
Like...

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I was in 4th grade - when most kids are 9 or 10 years old.  Not yet to the semi-adulthood of the teenage years, and not just "little kids" anymore, either.  You might...

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Up up the fly away wig doth go revisited and revised April 19th, 2023

IM pen named Pilot Jane A. Rug
who ascribes to writing poetry
as opportunistic, holistic, and cathartic
warming me body electric
courtesy an outsize 
warm brimful...

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'Twas the night before Christmas and all were asleep,
Not a creature was stirring, not even a sheep.
The cattle were snoozing, the pigs were at rest
And the chickens were settled asleep on the nest.

Apart from some...

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Up up the fly away wig doth go revisited and revised March 10th, 2024...

(Any resemblance between the following humorous account and real life circumstance tis purely coincidental).

Went off for hair raising shindig
donning noggin of villager...

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Up up the fly away wig doth go revisited and revised March 10th, 2022...

Went off for hair raising shindig
donning noggin of villager in Nigg
(historic county of Ross-shire,
historic region of Ross
and Cromarty, northeast
coast of Scotland).

Somehow postiche...

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January juxtapose
More cold now
Beyond hot heat!


Cold cold air
Windy surprise;
Minus heat therapy?


Winding way whirls
Shiver seeding shiver
January jostling juice


Lotus sunbathe --
Muddy pond flavours
Mid-afternoon glare


Misdirected
Whim and fancy;
Windy detours


New year in late January,
Oozing days forfeit;
Scent of the times!


Why do...

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How many?
how many lives;
how many have fallen 
beneath 
your magical spell? 

If it may be so, 
let each star be named 
You.
 
For your beauty transpires 
our words 
into all shine and sheen cast out
from...

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I Want to Plant a Seed of Poesy 

By Purushottam Dhakal

I want to write a poem
Every time
As people happen to die at road side
For lack of filling the stomach.
People are compelled to live a life
As...

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Eighteen hundred and three begins U.S. destinies.
Merriwether Lewis and his comrade, William Clark, agrees –
They will go forth, avoid Frenchmen, fighting growling grizzlies.
To find a water trade route that flows west to the Pacific seas.
Louis...

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The crumbling down of the Berlin Wall finally 
ended the Cold War as a defiant Reagan challenged
Gorbachev as his famous words were spoken mightily, 
"Mr. Gorbachev, tear it down!"...And he shouted them with rage, 
while...

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CHAPTER 6 (e, continued)

Though without communication 
Spoken in symbolic language 
Their gorilla hosts perceived it
And made ready for the parting
 
In a solemn mood of sadness
All the hominids assembled
In the clearing in the jungle 
Where they had repulsed the...

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Baneful brickbats begat grievous barrier

Tell tale indelible woe y'all
privy to learn yours truly harbors
traces of the masterful
impregnable prepubescent wall
still extant scads of decades since
complex edifice erected to force tall
adolescence - permanently leaving me, 
(a poor...

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Feel me standing there
on the draw bridge
that stands stubburn and erect
over the rushing waters blown by the wind
back and forth.
I listened to the crows
posted on gargoils designed
of eightenth century Gothic architecture
singing their death songs,
when the...

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