Long Knit 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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Beckoning
by Michael R. Burch 
 
Yesterday the wind whispered my name
while the blazing locks
of her rampant mane
lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday
I saw the way
the wind caressed tall pines
in forests laced by glinting streams
and thick with...

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Sonnets LII-LX

The Endeavors of Lips
by Michael R. Burch

How sweet the endeavors of lips: to speak
of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak
in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak:
for there is...

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Once upon a weedy lawn
At Cedar Oaks Retirement Home
There sat my mother, weak and old
On an afghan knit to block the cold.

It was summer, but in mom's grey eyes
Was winter, when all around us dies.
I...

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January 13th 2024 - Happy Lxv-th birthday Matthew Scott Harris

date of conception:?  ~ Late March – mid April 1958.
date of parturition: January xiii, mcmlix.
date of expiration:? January i, eminem, 
where earth, wind, and fire...

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Happy Lxiv birthday Matthew Scott Harris

date of conception:?  ~ Late March – mid April 1958.
date of parturition: January xiii, mcmlix.
date of expiration:? January i, eminem.

A gangly, measly, and scraggly bundle
of lovely bones even as...

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t         e         t        e   
     ...

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Please help yarn hexed door neighbor...

Yours truly pinned down by invisible 
vestiges of coronavirus and
getting attacked from angry plague 
of buttons, plus huge spools of yarn
grossly mistook me for human sock 
to seal and line...

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NA Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Ink Empress


                          Temporary Travellers
 
 ...

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The Letter         

A young man strolled along the waterfront,
His mind and heart at ease.
Said an old man, sitting on an upturned punt,
Gazing out towards the sea. 

“Come...

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This is a translation from Rabindranath Tagore's (Nobel-laureate Poet From India in 1913) narrative poem - Phanki. We need to remember that this story is based on life at late nineteenth century Bengal, India. The...

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My roommates Leong, Sophie, (Charles) and I were coming from a Yale sporting event. The sky looked like a dirty Swiffer-mop and the wind seemed to be ignoring the posted 20mph speed limit. It was...

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Through My Son’s Tears in NICU! 
God my creator, You knit me in my mother's womb 
You knew me when I was in my mother's womb 
You had plans for my life 
I was very...

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THE GREATEST GENERATION
by

JOHN M. ARRIBAS



Many Have Called Them the Greatest Generation
They Had Struggled and Survived, an Ugly Depression
It Was an Era of Hard Times and Simple Diversions
Like Bank Night, Singalongs  and Picnic Excursions
Band Concerts...

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Frog in a Well

By: Joanne Jin 

1.
The Frog

I am the frog in a well:
I do not speak; I do not move–

I think of sundaes and sunshine and all the euphoria,
But I can’t help but carry...

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It was just a silhouette but it reminds me why I left the spirit box closed 
I felt as though the hand I was holding
Was yours and not my own
In my want to believe
But reality...

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Devotion Poem, Like Snow Leopards

(Written for Jim Eslinger)

Out on one of the Great Plains of Yahweh, It seems
You may have gone on a hunt, or a long searching.
But no matter the reason, in the time...

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A field day shoe fit for Mother Goose
  
Fruitless effort squeezing figurative juice
Pandora called triggering 
helter skelter to get loose
necessitating Bullwinkle J. Moose
to usher at yours truly 
(an aspiring wordsmith) vamoose!

Hey diddle diddle the...

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The indecision builds 
while staring into the velvet covered bible
and knowing that you have already
read more than was necessary.
Yet you stand and read on and on
hoping that one small word
will shine into the dark crevices
separating...

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Shane walked to the back of the bar and found the door opened to an alley littered with the garbage of the bar and the restaurant beside it, the one whose neon sign has two...

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You knew you were going to die. 1
And yet you came, thinking no matter how insane,
the man on the seat of power would never want you dead
… it would be too much on his head.

And...

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Mother Goose would find her tail feathers ruffled 

Hey diddle diddle 
the cat and the fiddle
when off to see 
a crooked man and woman,
whilst cowards jumped 
over moo ving little
pair of mismatched muggles,
who both walked...

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*** Lunacy Loo Flies ***


Beauuty, in a creature from
Among the most high;
In rythmic song while in her flight 
Witnessng the realities and fancies
Circling the clouds — 
Proud of her ancient, legendary form, gone

lost into that...

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A warm, glowing September night.
Nondescript small town bar with
people enjoying fine company and revelry.
College football game just finished.
We won!
Some friends find a table and 
a deck of cards. Pinochle.
Smiling, joy, and laughter. Lively conversation.
Good will...

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You were primarily a spiritualist, 
But circumstances made you a noble warrior:
Your father, Guru Teg Bahadur,  
was treacherously beheaded.
You had to contend invaders from the Western frontier
And ward off repeated imperialist incursions from the...

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