Long Inhospitable Poems

Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally...

Read More

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...

Read More

He just appeared to me, like wispily curling 
Chimney smoke, 
One grim and early morning in the very midst of 
Decembers briefest days, on the highest slope,
Toiling through my daily round; where, slowly 
Driving up...

Read More

We'd been travelling through the night and we needed a rest
The unmerciful sun was now rising above a red rocky crest
We headed for a large boulder that offered plenty of shade
Jenna was getting sick and...

Read More

HealthCare giving
in a cognitive disability space
includes cultural LeftHemisphere trauma,
perhaps chronic autistic distress,
disrupted thrival flow
of wellness serotonin
and safe happiness dopamine
internally felt
sensory

Elder RightHemisphere spiritual
nondualistic
eco/theo-logical
outside/inside
warm womb-felt therapeutic
win/win
EgoChoices/EcoVoices
of health and safety resilience.

When we combine
what we know
about bicameral 
bilaterally contextual...

Read More

July first 2023 will celebrate...
our sixth anniversary at Highland Manor Apartments
	
Subtitled: The perspective of one festive folky fellow
friendliness ofttimes prompts me 
when crossing paths with another to say “hello,”
whose demeanor trends toward being mellow
courtesy about...

Read More

Epigrams/Epitaphs

Childless
by Michael R. Burch

How can she bear her grief?
Mightier than Atlas, she shoulders the weight
of one fallen star.

***

Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch 

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.
Because death...

Read More

There stood the Good German. He is proud. There was also a man,
Behind the drab uniforms. The one who was plain, but whose,
Heart beat fervently and yearned for glory. When proud marches,
Passed his way, their...

Read More

There's A Pedophile In The House...
(ah...ah...ah...ham eye white...???)

OMG,... and he looks...
     SAY WHAT??? just like me???,...
     absolutely NO WAY!!!,
would this sensitive,
     respectful, "FAKE"...

Read More

My hair is mostly white with streaks of black here and there
My white hair marks me as “aged” --- is that fair?
I don’t think or feel old (to which my body keeps disagreeing)
Just let me...

Read More

Cerulean sky in the quiet jungle was shook up by the unexpected tremor of a white and red bimotor plane. Larry, a tall, olive skin, green eyes, was the handsome pilot of the plane called...

Read More

And here tonight I assumed

This would be just another one
of those average dinner parties

With a stream of boring associates and
their plus 1 partner or other

But wow
Hey you
Are so different from all the other's

Why I am...

Read More

Born in Ireland in eighteen seventy four
He was a remarkably brave explorer
Three times to Antartica he did go
To that barren wilderness of ice and snow.

Once with Captain Scott and twice on his own
And it was...

Read More

Most people notice my sunny disposition,
 one that can cause blindness & irreparable skin damage.
They remark on the fact that all of my poetry
 is so cheerful and positive,
 wonder how a person who finds...

Read More

Deep in the forest was an inaccessible cliff
that soared high above the tall tree canopy.
People had wondered for years what lay beyond
yet the landscape was so inhospitable none dared
to try to reach the impassable cliff...

Read More

He's so phoney in poems, moaning only,
same tone, same story,
a war he can't endure anymore that beats him sore and sorry,
exploring his core for strength absent before in writes of sheer folly.

Wanting to write powerfully...

Read More

In the ocean’s vast and boundless deep, where light begins to cease,
A world of silent shadows casts a spell of tranquil peace.
Abyssal creatures, luminous with bioluminescent glows,
Paint streaks of light amidst the dark, where the...

Read More

4/20/24


The truth not fictional
If you don't get the principle
Then it's not clearly visible

No it was not biblical
Or mythical

Zero to do with being political
Yet they'll treat you like a criminal
Making themselves look cynical

By being analytical
As well...

Read More

Spare a thought
For buffaloes, bulls and bears groaning, mourning, starving
Under your collar don’t blow hot
Making rivers and rodents sad, carving 

Space and time you don’t own
Encroaching on privileges animals and plants possess
In their comfort and...

Read More

Endless purple flowers
and salt pools like polished mirrors
give color to the desert 
and reflect the clear blue sky---
disguising with their beauty
the poor soil and salinity
of wastelands inhospitable, 
inarable and dry.

Wrapped in a serape,
and sipping chocolate´,
I...

Read More

A religious voice,
spiritual culture,
sacred climate,
teaching and preaching at the lesser informed and unwise,
more invested in monocultural self-promotion
than co-invested in multicultural listening
and comparative discernment,
choosing more condemning pedantic forms of becoming 
over ecotherapeutic reasons for being, 
has...

Read More

It was time to visit the stars
To embrace them with my senses
Though the price was astronomic
I saved up for the expenses

Most think stars are unreachable
Due to the heat that they emit
But perhaps they’re very cautious
Just...

Read More

Sixty-Six years ago today a very naïve farm-boy left the Hoosier farm,
To seek adventure beyond the horizon since farming had lost its charm.
He enlisted in the Air Force, a knight in blue to keep the...

Read More

aswirl within tremendous maelstroms
universal united uninhabitable cauldron
tempered with analogous:
outrageous, portentous
thunderous cacophony in tandem

with thick mucilaginous fog
metaphorically postpartum
nebulous placenta afterbirth
and/or proto planets aborted

per primordial material
slowly (millions of years) coalescence
annealed bubbling primeval soup
engendering (extant

via immeasurably immense stretches...

Read More

prolonging pain 
ongoing insane
subverting hurting
ain't working
dodging the day
gets me no pay
prices up wages flat
elect a democrat
who does better than
what's done by republican
spending more
on making war

apolitical is political
just gonna be inhospitable
give me drug to raise me...

Read More