Long Imprisonment Poems

Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm that wells within?
How can the ocean not be blue,
not buck with the clapboard slap of tide,
the clockwork shock of wave on rock,
the...

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Vacuum
by Michael R. Burch

Over hushed quadrants
forever landlocked in snow,
time’s senseless winds blow...

leaving odd relics of lives half-revealed,
if still mostly concealed...
such are the things we are unable to know

that once intrigued us so.

Come then, let us...

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Nucleotidings
by Michael R. Burch

“We will walk taller!” said Gupta,
sorta abrupta,
hand-in-hand with his mom,
eyeing the A-bomb.

“Who needs a mahatma
in the aftermath of NAFTA?
Now, that was a disaster,”
cried glib Punjab.

“After Y2k,
time will spin out of control anyway,”
flamed...

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Today is assiduously
religiously different,
as I review our local RiverEast News.

Every week
Mike Thompson writes a solid Editorial
in a compelling voice.
I expect to only add
my hearty sacred
happy secular "Amen!"

Our nearly fearless Editor and Chief
calls for political "ACCOUNTABILITY!"
like...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

Though you possessed the moon and stars,
you are bound to fate and wed to chance.
Your lips deny they crave a kiss;
your feet deny they ache to...

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{Poet’s Note : I wrote this poem for the passing of my very dear friend & comrade, Cecyl Esau, Umkhonto we Sizwe Commander in 2021, as a contribution to his memorial service. Cecyl was given...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XII

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly,...

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War and Peace: That Midst Nations And Nationals

War and Peace, a classical fiction by Leo Tolstoy, first published as Voyna I Mir in 1865–69. This picturesque reflection of early 19th-century Russian culture saw as its...

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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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If God
and gods
and other paternal powers
resource love,
and not hate

And if we believe
that love fades
with encroaching fear

Which can overwhelm 
personal
and professional
and economic
and local
through global 
therapeutic,
and not traumatic, 
peace passion experience

And if god
and great paternal rulers
and warriors
and...

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It is a strange dream
in which an animal rights advocate
is swamped with questions
from Chief Justice Roberts.

A vicious dog,
trained to attack humans 
with politically incorrect audacity
to trespass against his white supremacist Master,
has been imprisoned
and sentenced to...

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Date:  April  2051
 
7 am the call resounded throughout 
Every Hakim Household. They had it
Blaring out onto the estate's public
Address system. "DJ heard it in 
His house clearly he was visibly 
Irritated. ...

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REVOLUTION
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS


A revolution is much deeper than what the eye can see 
An opportunity to rid the land of despotism and tyranny
When any citizen can expose the enemies of the state
Present and judge valid...

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 I am a Son of an African American
I run
my turmoils taints the history books
yet people give me evil looks
I run
I choose
Yet I am 
Black and blue, this is my physical hurt

Been given a name...

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I could not do what you are mandated to do
every day on society's justice bench,
weighing retributive justice 
against restorative healing.

I cannot look with any comfort
at police
and correction officers'
routinely criminalizing vocations,
and courtroom injudicious levying of fines
against...

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I am a tempest of words, aching to burst forth.
(Years of structured lessons simmer beneath my skin.)

The most important thing is that I'm drowning in metaphors. 
Being a poet shapes reality, and twists what you...

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Imagine
if you would be so kind,
join me
in striving to become 
less blind

Brilliant God says:
Give to your oppressively militarized government
weaponized suppressive
defensively repressive
straight white monotheistic privilege
paid for in tax advantages

And so
it was nationalistically done

Every fall
all co-invested residents...

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This horrendous Cambodian war-time story,
Ends with Cambodian glory,
Journalists forged a strong friendship within hard cruel times,
It is one of the best movies ever and all so true,
These two men Sydney Schanberg and Dith Pran
In the...

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Read this if you care about the world ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Imprisonment is meant for the sadistic, inhumane acts of evil and destruction of man kind in itself. To be locked away with nothing but your thoughts your...

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Strong suspicion a 2024 presidential win...

for the trumpeting don
spells loss for democracy
after inauguration day
witnesses his swearing-in
nepotism will run rampant
lawlessness the name of the game
of thrones breaking apart ramparts
of inalienable rightful
freedoms rent sunder, whereby nothin
can stop...

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Wherein lies the great dividing moral distinction
between hate crimes of socioeconomic historic proportion
and multicultural perpetuation,
and the more mundane population of defiance crimes
of a more personal nature?

Why is society's right to aggressively imprison unto nutritional neglect,
to...

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"Murdering Pluto" 

On Pluto, 
they deal with trauma
in the best possible way,
they murder it slowly 
in poetic hell 
day after day.

the dark Seraphim
have their way. 
their ways are stellar.
some say they hover
in the stratosphere,
but that's...

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From Bitter to Sweet

From one who knows.
The pain of separation – divorce.  One friend said, “death”
would be easier.  The husband of my youth.  There were happier
times.  Fleeting memories, of laughter, sunshine...

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HeteroSapiens have bipolar developed
miraculous capacities
to stretch and blur
legitimate moral peace initiatives
subordinate to licit legal judicial systems

Judiciously approved punishment
for misdemeanors
felonies,
cardinal
and moral
and carnal
and original sins
requiring flat fees
regardless of capacity to pay,
imprisonment,
enslavement,
lynching,
beheading,
burning at the stake,
chemical injections,

Capital disembodied punishments
NOT...

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(His Version of Split Personalities/Love and Hate)

Your personality is so baffling to me, how after all that you’ve endured is it still unwavering?
I am speaking to you in regard to myself because I am astonished...

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