Long Katydids Poems

Juvenilia: Early Poems IX

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

Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of...

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For All That I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch

For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...
and yet I hold her close within my thought:
I feel the burnished weight...

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Sonnets XC-XCVII

Artificial Smile
by Michael R. Burch

I’m waiting for my artificial teeth
to stretch belief, to hollow out the cob
of zealous righteousness, to grasp life’s stub
between clenched molars, and yank out the grief.

Mine must be art-official?zenlike Art?
a...

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The old sorcerer was teaching his apprentice a lesson about the moon, but as usual the subject drifted, this time, to witches. “How would I know a witch if I saw one?” The apprentice asked.

“It’s...

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Pointed Art
Michael R. Burch

The point of art is that
there is no point.
A grinning, quick-dissolving cat
from Cheshire
must have told you that.

The point of art is this—
the hiss
of Cupid’s bright bolt, should it miss,
is bliss
compared to Truth’s...

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What's not to love?
  What's not to marvel at?
   At the mauve lilac dusk?
    At the smiling crescent moon?
     Moon glowing up above?
  ...

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A post from the past.....just trying to put down all the ones I have written but deleted when I left the site for a while......this is almost too long, but I couldn't find which animal...

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,
                       A black cloud descends….        ...

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Premonition
by Michael R. Burch

Now the evening has come to a close and the party is over ...
we stand in the doorway and watch as they go—
each stranger, each acquaintance, each unembraceable lover.

They walk to their...

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The ABCs of Things Green

Algae, alligator, artichoke, asparagus, aphids, Andradite,
Brussels sprouts, broccoli, Buffalo Treehopper, and beans,
Cuckoo Wasp, Cabbage, cucumber, Common Green Darner, and celery 
Dog Day Cicada, Delphinium flowers diopside and dioptase, (rocks),
Emeralds, eyes, endive,...

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Oh, pretty little butterfly, flitting all around.
You can flash dance colorfully even with no sound. 
Hummingbird, I see you too. You flap your wings so fast.
You super duper flapper, you are having such a blast!

Bumble...

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Wonder into the woods with ax in hand
Take care to be on time when you arrive

The forest is dark. It slumbers.  Don't be alarmed 
Bring an umbrella in case it rains

Rotted fallen lumber is...

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A Poetic Time Line…
(Apropos Poetic Faith)

                       I

At times the mind hangs in silence;
all...

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Summer Days

The chirping of cicadas in the early morning light
Bring back pleasant memories of summer time delight
When you were just a school kid and had nothing all planned out
You spent your days like mine I’d...

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This is our precious Earth
It's high time we savvy its worth

When the King Sun emerges in the east
When the waxing moon smiles dark sky amidst
When little seeds pierce the earth's sheet
When fluffy white waves nudge...

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Scratched music of hillbilly washboards
From the scraping wings of the Katydids
Aloft in the Oaks
Reborn each night just beyond dusk
After the cicadas finish their warmup act

The Katydid return is glorious

Their little sound so loud
It overwhelms
The alarms...

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I let up the shade, as the sun has gone down
watching evening come in at the end of the day
It brings with it colors of umber and rust
while earth swallows dusk, which is fading to...

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As darkness descended on our valley -
deleting purple and violet from the sky -
my beloved and I lay upon a blanket
soon gazing at myriads of twinkling stars
that pulsed their pearlescent shine as if to music.
Goddess...

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Brother and sister crickets please recognize grasshoppers, 
katydids, and locusts as part of well schooled, politely 
ordered named league known as Orthoptera, (pronounced 
or th hop tara), which means 'straight wings'), and make 
sounds of...

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a beaten path which leads to a place time forgot

this old dusty road lined with trees on either side
taking me back to the only place i've ever truly felt at home
surrounded by social misfits
mother goose,...

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To A Poetic Time Line
For Poets of Poetic Faith


The mind hangs in silence
All is stilled—thoughts lingering
Lazily as if in a cosmic animation;

No words drip from the faucet
That once streamed waters of creation.
Now there’s only empty...

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The warm summer nights when pines on the hill
Seemed to talk to the creek, where the katydids spawn
They would call-out their hymns, in the warm evening still 
With sad choirs to end, ...but the music...

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The moon, a charcoal smudge, hangs low and dim,
while stars, like pinpricks, pierce the black night.
Clicking crickets creates a raucous hymn,
and katydids whir on new wings to take flight.

A yellow bulb's honeyed glow makes a...

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The crescent moon spoke quarter truths
    glowing yellow orange 
       in the evening sky.
Crickets and katydids chirped loud and incessant
    and the gray...

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Red Oak menstruates in the heat of summer
Beech and maples stand back from her labor
Moonlight lifts her skirt
Wind drifts through her leaves

She stomps in circles only the owls divine
Piper of voles
She checks the many holes...

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