Long Immolation Poems

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...

Read More

Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a lozenge of sugar.

When I held you in...

Read More

                                  ...

Read More

Prose Poems II
by Michael R. Burch

These are prose poems (is that an oxymoron?) and experimental poems...



briefling
by Michael R. Burch

manishatched, hopsintotheMix, cavorts, hassex (quick!, spawnanewBrood!); then, likeamayfly, he’s suddenly gone: plantfood.



bachelorhoodwinked
by Michael R. Burch

u are charming...

Read More

Recluse by dint of circumstance

Proud anonymous troglodytes 
forerunners of mine
confronted threats less horrific
than forty fifth commander in chief
of United States of America.

He/him (matted hair, ratty, scrawny, 
and tetchy ugly villain)   
scurried into dark...

Read More

As I ascend the podium, a predator of piquant pontifications, my eyes ravage the assemblage of adversaries, their countenances a canvas of consternation and morbid fascination. The atmosphere is heavy with the miasma of malignant...

Read More

Our old nemesis,
capitalism,
is much older than democratic theory,
and even older than profoundly resilient democratic practice,
which is rather like Christianity--
often communion preached
and seldom democratically and multiculturally proficient,
fruitful,
viral,
contagious,
multiplying economic loaves
and politically empowering fish.

Capital-rooted values
derive from tribal chiefs,
elite...

Read More

Yuletide pageants vis a vis merry go round revisited

healthy progeny regaled being alive
analogous to children ecstatic twenty-five
on December exhaling joie de vivre at dive 
in into neat stack of wrapped gifts, when...
what! out of thin...

Read More

Yuletide pageant merry go round

Panoply of mystical elements of holly day style 
breathe prez sense frostily exhaled aired
per millennia athwart 
(this terrestrial spaceship planet Earth)
two plus seventeen carousel rides resonated
veritable pantheon of pagan rituals 
and...

Read More

"The Shattering Silence of Falling Leaves"




In Theta waves 
tumbling to 
The Land of Dark Dreams
Trees will capture and save
the falling Princess and Queen
An Bee Cailleach
invisibilia simulacra viro
An Bee Cailleach scries heroes 
incarnate falling in 
The...

Read More

I'm not sure Shem
the Lord said he was sad,
he told me that a long time ago
the angels had done something terrible
that they had compromised their divine command
for carnal caprice, that their offspring had become offensive,...

Read More

Earth         was a perfumed garden
residing in a single                   ...

Read More

Soul of skeptic writhes with agonizing torture (like a burning man) in Dante's Inferno

Self immolation as sacrificial bleating lamb
promises eternal martyrdom
awaiting voluntary die hard protester,
where countless vestal virgins provide blissfulness
(think Playboy mansion on steroids)
synonymous with...

Read More

"SUPERSEDURE" 
(Part 2 - Our Sacred Lady of the Divine Perfect Imperfections")


In her heart there pounds a drum
it starts off faint, then buzzes to
crescendo, a ferocious hum, 
like an old Queen Honey Bee’s 
small remaining...

Read More

He/him (ratty, scrawny, 
and tetchy ugly villain)   
scurried into dark recesses of hermitage
averse to cavort, frolic, inure himself
into the duplicitous schemes
capitalized, glorified, popularized

courtesy vanity of Homo sapiens
lest imp of the pervert 
already sacrificed...

Read More

In the beginning there was a lonely word but soon after
            there was no room at the meagre hostel for the saviour

Sanguine hopes flash-flooded...

Read More

tender petsmart impact, where world wide web populated 
with sacrificial pacification sans deity 
via oblation, immolation, flagellation appeasing Dominatrix
borrow wing, vis a vis amalgamated viz Roman sol invictus
wrought fiery brimstone tempting those who dared
assert contrary...

Read More

A Letter from Anna, circa 1979

“My sorrow, when she’s here with me,
thinks these dark days of autumn
are beautiful as days can be.
She loves the bare, the withered trees
She thinks I have no eye for these,...

Read More

Aye did not heed the maxim be careful
     what you wish for,
     cuz now adversity not abate
perhaps helpful for thee reader

     if this...

Read More

Sans Whole Body Out Of Country Transplant

hmm...methinks mebbe aye
can empty the ocean
     one teaspoon at time bine bye
and after about
     a bajillion years cry
tears of joy, when...

Read More

Too busy they were
the passing conglomerate
focused on pavement
eyes ever forward
with their get there stare of hedonistic servitude
trailing their marching tempo of mobile phones
hard in the glass
hard to their homes
disguising all those battered egos
the ranks and...

Read More

The first cut 
of roses 
are in bloom 
and I will 
see them soon, 
very soon. 

They float 
in a bowl 
of Arctic ice-flow; 
regarded highly 
by the local Wal-Mart 
feng shui 
masters. 

Made to...

Read More

Looked up and down, right and left
Wondering why life suffers a theft
Subtracted beauty from my chin cleft
 
If I deserved and preserved the best
My love could lavish to attest
Why my love passed a preset test
...

Read More

Women in Afghanistan Commit Suicide to Escape Domestic Violence

It is estimated that 2,300 Afghan women attempt suicide every year, reports National Geographic. Between March 2009 and March 2010 alone, an estimated 103 Afghan women set...

Read More

I carry bittersweet memories of her-
I held such an ambivalent idea of who she truly was.
She was an angel by day yet arcane 
darkness consumed her at night.
My tactile touches were measurable 
and my instincts...

Read More