Long Hummingbird Poems

The First Valentine Poem

Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465) has been credited with writing the first Valentine poem for his wife in 1415. Charles wrote the first Valentine poem in the first year of his captivity while being...

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Family Poems

Mother's Smile
by Michael R. Burch

There never was a fonder smile
than mother's smile, no softer touch
than mother's touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than "much."

So more than "much, " much more than...

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Epigrams by Michael R. Burch



Negligibles
by Michael R. Burch
 
Show me your most intimate items of apparel:
begin with the hem of your quicksilver slip ...



Negotiables
by Michael R. Burch

Love should be more than the sum of its...

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Impossible mission to captcha infinitesimal moment

alternately titled: tick tock runneth amuck
seconds elapse imperceptibly 
leaving me dumbstruck,
how quickly fleeting tempus fugit; 
ofttimes imagined as time thief.

Hence following vignette: quiet as a mouse lurks the time thief...

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Poems about Mothers


Mother's Smile
by Michael R. Burch

There never was a fonder smile
than mother's smile, no softer touch
than mother's touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than "much."

So more than "much, " much more...

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Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

I shall rise
and try the bloody wings of thought
ten thousand times
before I fly...

and then I'll sleep
and waste ten thousand nights
before I dream;

but when at last...
I soar the...

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Poems about Children


The Desk
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

There is a child I used to know
who sat, perhaps, at this same desk
where you sit now, and made a mess
of things sometimes.I wonder how
he learned at all...

He...

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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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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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Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then...

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A Vain Word
by Michael R. Burch

Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls
as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining
till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls
under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining
to the darkening...

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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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INTRO

A wonderful world it is contemplated Jake as he planted his seed to grow his beanstalk. He knew that this beanstalk would nourish many so he watched it grow. One day he awoke and the...

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LOVE POEMS IV by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about love, passion, desire, lust, sex, dating, romance, relationships and marriage. 



She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by...

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(oh, mercy ... )

amazing eye whites,
perfect and pure as glacial ice -
they draw me in,
like diving into a clear Caribbean lagoon,
fluid and cool ...
brown iris so dark in contrast,
that they're lost in the inky black...

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PRINCESS DIANA POEMS

Fairest Diana: an Epitaph for Princess Diana
by Michael R. Burch

Fairest Diana, princess of dreams,
born to be loved and yet distant and lone,
why did you linger?so solemn, so lovely?
an orchid ablaze in a crevice...

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A child lights our way in life...
The greatest gift there is to be.
They suppress our selfish inclinations...
They set our passions free.

They give sense to our mortality.
They put narcissism in its place.
With a child... you're a...

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All that does encompass bespeaks wonder in everything
bubbling brooks and waterfalls does your glory ring
terrestrial and celestial ever fill our eyes with seeing
how can not it's splendor not fill our very being
 
raindrops in waters...

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HUM
                           I waited and waited--out-- on my front steps.
...

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Picturebook Princess

for Keira

We had a special visitor.
Our world became suddenly brighter.
She was such a charmer!
Such a delighter! 

With her sparkly diamond slippers
and the way her whole being glows,
Keira’s a picturebook princess
from the points of her...

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.Now here's a short story of Lou,
Who spent a whole day at the zoo.
And while he was there,
He met a fine pair,
Of friendly and beautiful gnus.

Next he went to the camel enclosure,
Where one, made the...

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To love, agapic and/or erotic,
is a positive economic-political relational choice
to trust whomever
and whatever is our Other right now
with open caring empathy,
even when we may feel like withdrawing
into suffering,
self-isolating
depressive,
repressed concerns of mistrust and dissonance,
because we have...

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flying over Gulf of Mexico
                              ...

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"The Silkworm’s Birthday"





Mulberry leaves flutter in the breeze
Kookaburra brave Joker bluffs a sky blue breast 
Drops one feather for a quill, a song hidden in a laugh, no bitter pill
magic never rests, like a crystal...

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'I DEFY YOU STARS! ! ! ! JULIET! ! ! ! JULIET! ! ! ! 
The sun to rise above all others
Gracing Earth with its mere presence
Eclipsing all other beauty to befall my weary eyes
Has...

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