Long Knell Poems

Poems about Flight, Flying, and Birds



Flying
by Michael R. Burch

I shall rise
and try the bloody wings of thought
ten thousand times
before I fly...

and then I'll sleep
and waste ten thousand nights
before I dream;

but when at last...
I soar the...

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Sonnets XXXIII-XLI

The Folly of Wisdom
by Michael R. Burch

She is wise in the way that children are wise,
looking at me with such knowing, grave eyes
I must bend down to her to understand.
But she only smiles, and...

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Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.



Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch

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

Because death...

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Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers IV



Neglect
by Michael R. Burch

What good are your tears?
They will not spare the dying their anguish.
What good is your concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm...

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Poems about Children V

Pan
by Michael R. Burch

Among the shadows of the groaning elms,
amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves

Once there were paths that led to coracles
that clung to piers like loosening barnacles

where we cannot return,...

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Self destructive wickedness arrested, convicted, and gaoled...

with kidnapping little boy 
ordered to suffer
life sentence without parole.

The deadly scourge of  
one obsessive/compulsive disorder
nearly left me starving to death.

Anorexia nervosa absent bulimia 
nadir of onset 
diagnoses...

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I shall resolve to leave this
Place now...
And steadfastly search out,
Nestling between ridge and bluff
Amidst the folds of a foreign 
Land,
Several acres of unkempt ground
Fallow and rough;
Upon which stands...
Crumbled stone walls
With an exposed slate roof in
Some...

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MODERN SONNETS II

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.



In Praise of Meter
by Michael R. Burch

The...

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_ a symphonic, folk rock, blues song
1.
I'm an old man looking
For the lost, best parts of me.
I'm an old man looking
For the lost, best parts of me.
I'm looking in the places
Where the people say love...

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In the intimate interlace of chance and fate, in the ultimate interplay of time and place, and with the consummate checkmate of my human dignity, all that is -- is over, in the stormy, swarming...

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Mine psyche riddled with dybbuk
Thru emerging adulthood awareness awoke
within noggin of average baby boomer bloke
catastrophization toward risk taking I evoke
positive growth experiences throughout vast
number of orbitz around sun never kickstarted,
nor linkedin with potential livingsocial folk,
thus...

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Mine psyche riddled with dybbuk

Thru emerging adulthood awareness awoke
within noggin of average baby boomer bloke
catastrophization toward risk taking I evoke
positive growth experiences throughout vast
number of orbitz around sun never kickstarted,
nor linkedin with potential livingsocial folk,
thus...

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Mine psyche riddled with dybbuk - haint no joke

Thru emerging adulthood awareness awoke
within noggin of average baby boomer bloke
catastrophization toward risk taking I evoke
positive growth experiences throughout vast
number of orbitz around sun never kickstarted
nor linkedin...

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Stricken with turbulence at about seventy two inches

Yours truly issuing a deafening rebel yell
bursting forth with such might
courtesy cooking under pressure
analogous to volcanic upswell,
forcing me quickly to flap vestigial wings
(at the speed of sound)
while simultaneously...

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Burn
by Michael R. Burch

for Trump

Sunbathe,
ozone baby,
till your parched skin cracks
in the white-hot flash
of radiation.

Incantation
from your pale parched lips
shall not avail;
you made this hell.
Now burn.

Keywords/Tags: burn, earth, environment, fire, future, nature, natural, planet,  climate, pollution,...

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Goodbye and good riddance 2023

Commencement writing this poem
began December 31st: 2:24 PM
ended December 31st: 03:53 PM.

The best geriatric effort I apply
twittering, ushering, and 
albeit wheezing Auld Lang Syne
crocodile done deed tear 
will yours truly cry
bidding,...

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Harriet Harris circa November 13th, 1935 - ~ May 4th, 2005

untimely death sentence ordained 
approximately six months prior 
to mother dearest celebrating 
her seventieth birthday,
though the last three years of her life
impacted courtesy hysterectomy
to remove...

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Bygone Days
Written: By Tom Wright
4/3/2007

Remember the slogan
 “Haskell is moving, are you pushing?

The railroad depot stands no more
In the spot it occupied for so long.
Instead in it’s space, a Homeland store,
But in my memory it...

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* Bringing this gem back in the hope Becca Teagan sees it and returns. We wrote this together, a labor of love. The poem ends with a moral lesson that humanity still hasn't learned, sadly.

...

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Harriet Harris née Kuritsky circa November 13th, 
1935 - ~ May 4th, 2005
(untimely death sentence ordained ~ early February 1935)

I trot out a poem acknowledging birthday
of dear ole mom, who succumbed, 
lost lease on life
nearly...

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Placed Fist in:
Pick a Title, Vol 41 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Edwrad Ibeh


                       ...

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Father’s Day was coming and Dragon was already, in full mode.
Hubby was his Hero, a true Papa, like in every story ever told.
Everyone was talking about what’s, to be, their Papa’s Day gifts.
Yep, TV salesmanship...

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They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters:
These see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep.

From the 107th psalm




It's been the hub of the...

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(To the Spartan Queen) 

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra via
Mi inoltrai in una selva oscura
  
‘They drive horses down this hill’ 
She said, 
‘They take them to drink down there, that pool, there’ 
She...

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(Fictional, but based on the real experience of one of my close friends who lost her daughter in an accident)

 As I sat on my desk,
Hurrying with my pent up work,
A scrap of paper, left...

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