Long Heave Poems

Where art thou anonymous benefactor...to offer me succor?

Ah... methinks legal tender 
could be a boon to help me bolster 
mein kampf with necessary material equipage,
which prospect to acquire essential 
commodities sabotaged 
at the altar of...

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Poems about Poems (I)



What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer
~~~underwater~~~
watching the shoreline blur
sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles...
Both worlds grow obscure.



Muse/Goddess
by Michael R. Burch

“What will you conceive in...

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Poems about Butterflies and Bees



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...



Album
by Michael R. Burch

I caress them—trapped in brittle cellophane—
and I see how young they were,...

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The Making of a Poet
by Michael R. Burch

While I don’t consider “Poetry” to be my best poem—I wrote the first version in my teens—it’s a poem that holds special meaning for me; I call it...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch

In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
while...

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The State of the Art (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Has rhyme lost all its reason
and rhythm, renascence?
Are sonnets out of season
and poems but poor pretense?

Are poets lacking fire,
their words too trite and forced?
What happened to desire?
Has...

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Let Me Give Her Diamonds
by Michael R. Burch

Let me give her diamonds
for my heart's
sharp edges.

Let me give her roses
for my soul's
thorn.

Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.

Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.

Let me...

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Sonnets XVII-XXIV

Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch

The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten...

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Poems about Things that Break II
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter.
 
 
 
Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch
 
You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VII

These are early poems I wrote as a boy and as a teenager.

The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men...

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The Song of Amergin: Modern English Translations

The Song of Amergin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am the sea breeze
I am the ocean wave
I am the surf's thunder
I am the stag of the seven tines
I am...

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Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds (I)



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as hummingbird wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...



Southern Icarus
by Michael R. Burch

Windborne, lover of heights,
unspooled from the truck’s wildly lurching...

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  I feel so damn trapped in rage 
Like a rainbow lion in a cage 
I feel so much pain in my brain
And it's driving me quite insane

Numb my solace shame
Get me feeling more...

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Part I

Where gladiators fought for life,
we meet to fight for love
The constellations in the Roman night sky,
celestial spectators, bathe the Colosseum
in the white blood of light
The night is throbbing with the heat of our battle,
our...

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Patience
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

If you refuse to speak, I will fill my heart with your silence and endure it.
I will remain still and wait like the night through its starry vigil
with...

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Brownian motion writ large...
within small medium 
as light brainstorm doth 
hail forth the following poem.

Across the realm of gray matter
slowly percolating within tissue
composed of neuronal, glial 
and endothelial cells, and although 
there must be biological...

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I wait with bated breath for... C. Cure T. Clarence

The following crafted 
approximately midway 
into the administration 
of forty fifth president,
whose crass, gutsy, lewd,
repulsive yawping finds
him squarely poised to
nab the nomination as
Republican front runner
come the...

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True love is unquestionable. 
What is true love?
To me; it is more feeling based rather than definitively worded. 
Emotional attached, formed mentalities that are equally paired with an immaculate physical connection. 
Collected bi-gender, shared love—
She’s...

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There's a Senior's home called the Shady Lane
    and life's curse is at an end.
Where a hundred souls are kept in line
    till Death its message sends.
They built a...

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Suddenly, two Indian boys throw themselves into the water like meteors
swiming towards camp chatty as prarie dogs,
they hail from a Teton encampment of 74 lodges a few miles up river
most of the men are feeling...

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My baby don't cry
My baby don’t cry
Baby, I feel you weeping in grief at home
Told you I can be outside and freely roam 

My baby don’t cry
My baby don’t cry
Even if life goes awry
Don’t you...

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Whatever Happened To Glasnost And Perestroika?

Hobbit those characters who lived 
within the realm 
of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
as far removed as
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
upon squelched cusp of progressivism,
now most likely 
experience bitterness at the...

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Choices my dear one,
So many choices, 
So few voices,
Some near,
Some far,
Some to fear.

A path.
Clear and chosen.  
The erasure of a closing.
The logos of math.
The trajectory of wrath.
The conciliatory legislation blindly ruling the cosmos of...

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I will not waste away in the streets of such unbearable nightmares where I silently weep
I will survive the rainstorm of lament and listen to the mesmerizing murmurs of the deep
I am alive in the...

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Fretfully aching to feel fit as a fiddle

After experiencing a severe,
albeit violent near lethal bout
of irritable bowel syndrome
(yesterday night August 30th, 2023)
triggered courtesy dulcolax caplets plus 
healthy portion of lentils,
I (a beatle browed, foo fighting,...

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