Long Hovel Poems

An icy chill descends on 13 Beaver Veil Cottage as sisters Ester and Ellie walk gingerly up the steps on this wet and windy night.
This once charming pied-a-terre was now in a final phase denouement.
The...

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n icy chill descends on 13 Beaver Veil Cottage as sisters Ester and Ellie walk gingerly up the steps on this wet and windy night.
This once charming pied-a-terre was now in a final phase denouement.
The...

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Radiance
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea but feels its meaning—
the...

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Limericks VI - Religion

Pell-Mell for Hell Mel
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a Baptist named Mel
who condemned all non-Christians to hell.
When he stood before God
he felt like a clod
to discover His Love couldn’t fail!



Why I...

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These are poems about Dylan Thomas, as well as poems "for" and "after" Dylan Thomas. Dylan Thomas was one of my favorite poets from my early teens and has remained so over the years. I...

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Myth, after Dylan Thomas
by Michael R. Burch

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and sighing, complete,
waiting, lain in a low...

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Every year In Robin Hood Country Nottingham
There in October, they hold. What is known, as the Goose Fair. It's huge. and goes back centuries, straining the Middle Ages, perhaps even longer.
My pals and I back...

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     by how many badbyes can you measure the length of your day

                 first comes...

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Pellucid pachyderms wade across
the purpling River Manjees
and Tozzath watches from the bank, 
the seat of his maroon pantaloons soaked with mud,
his nostrils flaring with the fragrance of ombadalias,
whose lacey petals flutter
like the wings of long-dead...

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“Upon Waking”


Slumber has its upsides 
while the outside runs around
like a split fowlyard, 
cacophonous 
pecking at each other 
and at the ground…

Elsewhere, 

like dull background noise
through the fog of dream 
the sound of the gamble...

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She was happy to deliver the news if only to get a glimpse of Lumi.  They had 
met some years back, before he had been exiled to the northern desert.  She thought she...

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As dawn unfolds today beyond my fractured windowpane,
a breeze beguiles the ashen drapes. Like snakes they slip aside,
revealing wanton worlds that race and run aground, insane,
immersed in scenes obscene that savants strive to mask and...

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today i will wander to the brothel
those divine friends of Jesus
where i will intercourse
with the ladies in my growing Spanish
write some lines to ponder
while they wash clothes and bathe
i the balneologist with the brandy
we watch...

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A healthy dose of invective flourishes at Highland Manor asylum

I hate to be curt,
but welcome to the monkey house
at 2 highland manor drive,
where all manner of imbeciles go berserk.

I and the missus
(thee unfortunate recipient
of poisonous...

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As a writer of fiction novels, I positively basked in my work,
Story ideas lived in my head, as blue stars at twilight lurk.

Yes, I was a successful writer, and had many zealous readers,
As vee shaped...

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beMUSEd
by Michael R. Burch

Perhaps at three
you'll come to tea,
to have a cuppa here?

You'll just stop in
to sip dry gin?
I only have a beer.

To name the "greats":
Pope, Dryden, mates?
The whole world knows their names.

Discuss the "songs"
of...

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dark matter(s)
by Michael R. Burch

the matter is dark, despairful, alarming:
ur Creator is hardly prince charming!

yes, ur “Great I Am”
created blake’s lamb

but He also created the tyger
and what about trump and rod steiger? 


The Echoless Green
by...

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His obituary was in the newspaper today.  I had not thought of him in ages, yet he was always in a nest in my heart.  Tears occupied  my eyes as I did...

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This is my modern English translation of a French poem by Voltaire, one of my all-time favorite writers. The poem is followed by two translations of epigrams by Voltaire.

Les Vous et Les Tu (“You, then...

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The poor boy heard Christmas beckoning at the door
He saw every house bright with many a lamp
And streets illumined with colorful lights and stars
But his tiny hut looked dismal n’ dark like a prison camp

With...

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I always arise
     at break of dawn,
when curtained solar
     radiance openly drawn
upon a vast
     wasteland, though thankfully
     most (boot...

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It confused Anton, he found no more leads,
no more connections between the two deaths,
he doubted himself, were they connected?
He missed something and could not see it yet.

But then his chief came, raging and angry,
said that...

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Sitting on the bed, legs crossed, and still, 
She sits and wonders how her life could be so real 
that it's like a fantasy – a fantasy gone bad. 
She stops and smiles at herself...

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Hell 

The place of safety was dirty and cold 
The building smelt musty, damp and old 
Place of safety in which I was to roam 
Was, in fact, a children's home 
They clothed and fed...

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Our Maureen sits,
At an old kitchen table
She’d say: “I love you,”
If she were able
But she missed her chance,
And took to the bottle
She cried herself sober,
And ran back to her hovel

She ran her hand through her...

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