Long In for a penny Poems

Yours truly would never be confused for a gourmand, nevertheless I could enjoy experiencing taste testing select food samples if offered an opportunity of attending a fancy feast viz smörgåsbord, whereby oral indulgence would arouse,...

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I have been trying to find the right words to pen this verse, but since I came to this country my words are suppressed and my voice is oppressed. The wind is blowing furiously, and...

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Instruction
by Michael R. Burch

Toss this poem aside
to the filigreed and the wild tide
of sunset.

Strike my name,
and still it is all the same.
The onset

of night is in the despairing skies;
each hut shuts its bright bewildered eyes.
The...

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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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Juvenilia: Early Poems XI

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas

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...

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Athenian Epitaphs

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
—Michael R. Burch, after Plato

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls
in their...

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"Salvage"


Salvage the fixating salvation 
unfurling from the wreckage
of a numb world twisted inside
treasure climbs swimming 
the ladder from the deep of all things 
reaching upwards travelling in a new time
of melting morpheme moments overlapping 
dissolved...

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NOTE:  This is the 2nd THIRD of a funny 3-part piece. No other way to post it due to file size limitations. It's a really fun poem, and I hope you'll take the time...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VIII

These are early poems of mine, written in my teens as a high school and college student. 

Moon Lake
by Michael R. Burch

Starlit recorder of summer nights,
what magic spell bewitches you?
They say that...

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THIS IS THE SECOND 1/2 of my "Tiny Town Events" piece, posted separately, (one half at a time), due to Poetry Soup's poem maximum-length requirement.
To enjoy the entire story, you'll need to first go to...

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Starlight and Moonlight II

These are poems about starlight and moonlight, moons and stars, dreams and visions, illuminations and intimations …




Deliver Us...
by Michael R. Burch 

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The night is dark and scary—
under...

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On the need to avoid being envious: Canto XVII, K161, K162 of the THIRUK-KURAL, Translation with Commentary

[ ENVY, of course, knows no racial nor ethnic boundaries, but I wouldn't be wrong, I dare say, ...

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This piece is based on a true series of events --


First time me an’ Jessie seen him - walkin’ in from nowheres - 
couldn’t o’ been a stranger sight - as each of us recalls,
But...

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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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"Fragments and crumbs of life, all the little pieces"

                    John Ruskin, 1853


I think of youth’s sweet...

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Every day, ‘round 8 am, I climb up from the subway and pass a guy - a blind guy -  who is there to beg for change.
But one day, as I paused to watch...

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1
Though still within our infancy, 
we strive to thrive, but woefully 
we flash and flaunt our 'primacy',
display our trophies pridefully.
 
Our terra firma ecstasy
destroys survival's harmony,
lays waste to life on land and sea.
Mankind, thy name...

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WINTER, 1948 [40 Saxton Street]

for W.W

The winter nights that pass now
are so unlike the winter nights
that passed before, that I often
struggle back in those suspended moments
when sleep grapples for a hold,
to once again hear the...

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They came from as far a way as New York and Dallas Texas. The class of 1981 wasn't a large class, it was the very first class of a very very private school. Their school,...

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Molested the first fifteen years of my life. My mother remained silent the whole time. As the molesting continued all those years. Forced to live a pretend life all my childhood. Beaten and punished every...

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I write this prose for my dear, fair lady wife
To celebrate her Birthday on November 29th
She’s my partner, my best friend, the love of my life
Without her my life would be as dark as night

From...

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The Good Girl

Penny has always been a good girl, now she is a good wife. She lives in a good neighborhood, drives a nice car, has two perfect children. Her husband is a doctor and...

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Poet Convention

Lost in a poets convention, 
I can't recall every poem, I've read through the years
50518, unique comments I 'validate'--- 
Thank You For Sharing Your Happy and Sad tears 
Since March 24, 2010 In the...

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Please help yarn hexed door neighbor...

Yours truly pinned down by invisible 
vestiges of coronavirus and
getting attacked from angry plague 
of buttons, plus huge spools of yarn
grossly mistook me for human sock 
to seal and line...

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Standing up for the kids standing up to sleep in overbearing heat clothes damp from their pee, God made night separate from day, but with lights bright all night as well as all day, the...

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