Long Kindred 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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Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

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Each flame 
elegantly weaves in waves
flowing up from resources red cinder hot,
similar in warm color
temperature decrees
of beauty as integrity's truth
trust each surrounding flame.

Each flame 
unique in point of origin below
as ubiquitously flickering fading destinations above.

Yet...

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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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A Stolen Memory
A Mirthful Chorus
By Sy Roth 


We surrounded him 
Asked to let go.
She stared at the misshapen face,
Unshaven sandpapery skin 
Eyelids a tabula rasa
Fluttery sere skin
And we could see the humor blossoming in his...

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The tears flowed and I still smiled,
My body and spirit and mind,
Were still in that state of residual bliss,
Soaking in your sweet smile,
And savoring the moonlit skin before me,
But my soul was being torn asunder,
And...

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When in the Course of Earth’s anthro-supremacist events, 
it becomes necessary for polycultures to resolve political bands 
which have connected Her with human nature, 
and to assume among the powers of Earth, 
separate and equal...

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Rejection Slips

With over 5,700 publications if I count poems that have gone viral, I suppose I shouldn’t complain … but I do have some poems that have never been accepted for publication. Here are a...

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Salve
by Michael R. Burch

for the victims and survivors of 9-11

The world is unsalvageable ...
but as we lie here
in bed
stricken to the heart by love
despite war’s
flickering images,

sometimes we still touch,

laughing, amazed,
that our flesh
does not despair
of love
as...

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Additional free advice to those* who would be King from the THIRUK-KURAL with Commentary
[*like presidents, prime ministers, dictators of declining (falling or fallen) nations or even empires]

K442: urranOy niikki uraa amai munkaakkum
   ...

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Deliberately recognizing the sun against the moonbeams
I see your eyes gleam and your happiness screams
Into my eager ears over the years and I’m tension-whelmed with the tears I shed
Hanging at the last thread, giving in...

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



Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch 

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?

And will she find...

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The Dance of Salome
Herod bellowed out the night's festive orders..
"Bring the torches, bring the tables..
more wine, that we may rejoice,  
for tonight we revel in kindred friendship."
Herod strolled onto the terrace, nearly stumbled in...

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**Trigger Warning**



"I Knew Anne Silently - My Ravenous Poe" 

I knew Anne.
you’d think 
with a name like hers
she’d be able to find her way 
out of unchartered waters.

it didn’t come as a suprise, 
then, on...

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This is a Crown of Sonnets I wrote about one of my favorite books and movies (the version in 1943 with Liz Taylor, who was only 11 had a small role, Joan Fontaine and Orson...

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1—Milieu

Unique construction of body and mind
My niche in human pack not quickly found 
Raw young heart of a curious design
The empty mirrors for my soul abound

Subjectively a bit odd to myself
A jangled, disconnected kind of...

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Human history is difficult;
hard pressed,
discovering
and rediscovering,
connecting
and reconnecting feelings
about therapeutic needs
and sacred wants
for trauma-prevention peace
trust
joy

Through co-empathic singing passions
which may,
too often, 
feel stressful

Irritating
depressing
stormy
before unconditional win/win regard
for Self AND Other
reconnect,

Like EgoTheistic re-ligion
and EcoMatrimonial
indigenously multicultural
ecowomanist wisdom

Of Ego/EarthTribe mutual MeWe...

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Its been over 27 years coming
 this missive or letter,
 maybe poem ? 

I HATE Mother’s day !!
 with a passion ... I've said it ...
 The sheer relief is palpitating
 a load of my...

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“Ten Years, Somewhere in their Lost Neighbourhood”

Of course,
he said, like a god,
there is no course,
one must simply go with the flow
the penumbra stands waivering its existence,
a kind of deactivation, fuzzy borderline hanging, 
backing the art...

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??Isaiah 63:11-12 KJVAAE??
[11] Then he remembered the days of old, Moses, and his people, saying, Where is he that brought them up out of the sea with the shepherd of his flock? where is he...

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Dedicated to: Myself and the kindred spirits

Rise up today so gracefully and comely. Let not the present by the past be spoiled. You are entitled to what is best in the new day; do not...

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Moods oscillate in cadences of peaks and valleys
Music to fractious emotions on greasy dance floors
Mistimed cues of flares smouldering relationships

Angst of redundancy seethes from within as lava
Anger is camouflaged with the cloak of reticence
Ardour suffocated...

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"Burnt Aqua"



I can taste the sun
on my tongue
it spills down 
my throat
like burnt aqua
healing the beating frisson

I am ebony inside
shading in my shadow world
some somnolent soul
waking from slumber’s dream dance 
a small death in life...

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Bounteous mass media mechanizations...
generate fixation spurring sexual exploitation
evidenced courtesy adulation
particularly regarding young females,
whose seductive poses 
linkedin selling (hard) wares
versus advertising males sporting, harkening,
approximating Adonis with remarkable beauty. 

Western civilization commercialization,
commodification, communication 
methodologies adrip with deification,...

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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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