Long Incised Poems

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...

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These cascaded tears are black in complexion,
I started arranging them when I was fourteen.
These broken stars are the horizons of fear, 
I started numbering them when I was ten. 
These words were the scars seen
in...

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FROM THE ur POEMS



u-turn: another way to look at religion
by Michael R. Burch 
 
... u were borne orphaned from Ecstasy
into this lower realm: just one of the inching worms
dreaming of Beatification; u
would love to...

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THE ur POEMS


& GAUD said, “Let there be LIGHT VERSE
to illuminate the ‘nature’ of my Curse!”
—michael r. burch


grave request
by michael r. burch

come to ur doom
in Tombstone;

the stars stark and chill
over Boot Hill

care nothing for ur...

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FREE VERSE VI

Reason Without Rhyme
by Michael R. Burch

I used to be averse
to free verse,
but now I admit
YOUR rhyming is WORSE!

But alas, in the end,
it’s all the same:
all verse is unpaid
and a crying shame.



What the Poet...

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Once upon a silent summer eve, 
as fine vermilion lines, 
between bleeding moonlight, 
swiftly sailed across
  my darkness and I, 
sakura springs sang 
 dulcet melodies of 
  a deathless devotion, 
incised within...

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Hold me within the virtual chalice of righteous
And never let me stray too long amid the imperfection of this body
From this visage of dignity, once poured upon my soul...
That not deceit nor hypocracy become the...

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Scathing these miscoloured orbs of sight, with incised rocks carved beneath

Concretionaries jagged edges of contagiums....

Painted upon the predominating canvas of perceptions dank, pasteled times!

So what has changed, this mosaic of histories collective collage?

As one way...

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You know not why you're now here, 
just that you are bound by fear- 
(and a couple incised wires) 
watching me, enticed with pliers. 
Naked, cold, taught, and crying, 
you can't move, although you're trying. 
All stretched out, upon your stomach, 
odors...

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her arms had waisted away

her hands were cuffed

shackles incised her wrists

her eyes weren’t motionless

but all she could see was a wall

and she felt like an infernal image

of rage damned water welling up

with no release for...

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The shaded lane leads to the estuary
and mud banks sculpted by the constant sea,
expose their drying backs beneath the sun
before once more in ebb and flow are gone.
 
Over a sty a path leads from...

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Her words were mumbled unprovoked and put him through the grinder
minced they were tearing apart they hurt like a dagger so he finally knew
where his heart was dismembered as it stood still one sentence then...

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... leave your walls and cliffs behind and 
leap with me into the vernacular music of turquoise night, 
clutching one another by our trembling hearts, 
defying the twisted face of oppression 
in annihilation of free-fall...

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There’s the tightrope for you to walk, wire walker —

defying the gravity of reality and the reality of gravity
you know damn well he won't catch you when you fall
as your sticky grip on the star’s...

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It seems like only yesterday when your rainbow ceased
The reaper’s blade turned crimson in the struggle for being
Violet droplets forsaken as the final violation struck home
Forgotten the pinks and the mellow the sprite resolution 
A...

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Revived to pop out as an empty nester 
To accompany a newfangled life
Maneuvered all the way for a change of state
I dropped my bags and willed at country’s metropolis. 

The heirloom edifices occupying moiety of...

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Nobody noticed her pain and resourceful depression

As façades piled onto charades of deceitful appearance

	She cut a pattern onto her skin with razor blade strokes

Her innocent blood oozed a translucent shine of despair

In her mind she...

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We are at the junction of the Little River and the Ottawa River,
journeying into the Canadian wilderness by canoe, the
paddles stroke slowly into the water, paddles heavily incised
with vines and flowers, and I am dipping...

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^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ ^^ 

We are at the junction of the Little River and the Ottawa River,
journeying into the Canadian wilderness by canoe, the
paddles stroke slowly into the water, paddles heavily incised
with vines and...

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Although intoxicated within ethereal madness;
bound within the chains of this soulless prison.
I'm desperately in love with this Gothic sadness;
whilst staring into a fog of disheartened reason.

Walking and stalking through dark rancid streets;
stopping for pints, now...

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We are at the junction of the Little River and the Ottawa River,
journeying into the Canadian wilderness by canoe, the
paddles stroke slowly into the water, paddles heavily incised
with vines and flowers, and I am...

Read More

Winter has taken hold of my heart.


In the dark of night she slunk in, leaving frosty-footprints on the glass,
and sang me to sleep with lips as soundless as an owl's wing-feather,
dusting my eyes with powder...

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Visions Beyond the Horizon

The doctor incised the umbilical cord, the nurse held him by heel,
They waited; the baby cried not; the nurse nudged and he giggled;
The baby giggled again; new mom laughed; doctors just haggled;
The...

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In my brittle life’s fragile landscape changes are not aberration,
etching a valley incised on contours of topographic undulation,
meanders in time to plains of nebulous future taking shape,
changes are not aberration in my brittle life’s fragile...

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when her shadow cracked

fragments entered her mind

shards of false gold

pierced façade and persona

left her in pieces

splintered images and illusions


the mask had been held tight

a rope strangled the puppet

clown’s grimace incised

by strings of attachment

and forced assimilation


a...

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