Long Lashed out Poems

Juvenilia: Early Poems V

Poetry
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry, I found you
where at last they chained and bound you;
with devices all around you
to torture and confound you,
I found you—shivering, bare.

They had shorn your raven hair
and taken both...

Read More

The Making of a Poet
by Michael R. Burch

While I don’t consider “Poetry” to be my best poem—I wrote the first version in my teens—it’s a poem that holds special meaning for me; I call it...

Read More

The State of the Art (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Has rhyme lost all its reason
and rhythm, renascence?
Are sonnets out of season
and poems but poor pretense?

Are poets lacking fire,
their words too trite and forced?
What happened to desire?
Has...

Read More

With my Uyghur poetry translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets who are being sent to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps.

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Asylum seekers, will...

Read More

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...

Read More

Stars fall under failing skies...stars fall...stars fall...
And sadly...i start to drive.
Through the unremarkable village with its tall 
Georgian Bay window panes, lightless,
devoid of visages; outwardly staring back at my 
Abject countenance with detached contempt and...

Read More

Perhat Tursun

Perhat Tursun (1969-) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Born and raised in Atush, a city in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Tursun began writing poetry...

Read More

In hell is called Malebolge a site
Completely made of ferrous color stones  
As almost all the rim around looks quite.

Of the malignant field the middle zones
Are the seat for a well much wide and...

Read More

Touching my hand was a wet doggy.
Whatever my fate was going to be,
My dog, my hero would be with me,
If he was in terror it did not show,
I was the weak one that I know.
With...

Read More

Continued from
‘CATONITA STRIKES - PART ONE’
A Freezer Mice adventure


When no-one was around they did the finger-clicking thing
And grew to human size in time for what the day might bring
Their guns were charged and ready and...

Read More

Brownian motion writ large...
within small medium 
as light brainstorm doth 
hail forth the following poem.

Across the realm of gray matter
slowly percolating within tissue
composed of neuronal, glial 
and endothelial cells, and although 
there must be biological...

Read More

“I must say, Rian,” Joulupukki addressed the Dark Elf. “I find you a bit disappointing.  From all of the stories I've heard, I expected so much more from you.”
     “I...

Read More

uncomfortableness, and hesitation arose that you might reassess a possibility for friendship or.... whatever with me.

A disappointment set in place in the event that based on some facet of my being (inexplicable flaws within this...

Read More

Hello world
Hello universe
Today I apologize
today I apologize to you
today I apologize
for giving you my worst
for performing below my best
for making empty promises I can't keep 
and for banishing people from my life
out of anger, out...

Read More

Newfoundlanders can row, you should see some of'em go,
when they puts a punt on a pond. 
But I don't like this mess, all this Race foolishness,
I'd never seen so much goings on.

If you wants to...

Read More

For so long I have fought my monsters in the war lands. For so long I’ve been by myself in the wake of my chaos. Others tried to stand beside but shortly fell or shortly...

Read More

Who am I? I am me, and me is having a little me time
No way!  Five days plus a weekend. 7 days, that’s mine.
It’s not fair. It’s a sin. It’s crazy. No, really honey,...

Read More

...and then just as suddenly, constellations appeared in a daytime sky, framed by white pines crawling with multicolored caterpillars.  So from this day forward, they would search the sky for more star pictures. They...

Read More

The Greek gods were egotistic, arrogant, jealous,
Said to be excellent lovers, fanatics, and zealous
About everything and anything, lounged around
Adorning places like Marathona, the Acropolis
The Parthenon.  Archaeology
Maintains that Greek Mythology 
Goes back to the Bronze...

Read More

Five strangers rode into Bodie, a small gold mining town
They didn't look at anybody and kept their heads down
At the Citizens bank they halted, it had been a long ride
Four then entered the bank and...

Read More

Dear, ice cold hands:
You came from a place of hurt and evil. You were used to people walking in and out of your life. You perfected how to push people out of your life, just...

Read More

Halloween Tale, Poetic Dream Of Raven, Poe And I
(Not a contest entry)

When into an unearthed slumber I fell
An accursed storm came with its black tail
Within isles of swirling doom and gloom
I woke, a prisoner in...

Read More

A midnight shriek or sudden bang
Disrupts the thread of tales,
Entangled in unconscious mind
With sounds of lashing flails.

Wherefrom it comes, whither it goes?
I threw my eyes up there,
The eerie void soon called me up
To trudge down...

Read More

(His Version of Darkness and Lightness)

Oh, before you I never dreamed of venturing into the light, but you intrigued me with your celestial colors always shining out of your soul so bright 
I always knew...

Read More

Far away deep in the forest there lived a druid
It was a long journey of three to four days of
hard going with no real path to speak of.
Just little trails wandering through the trees
and up...

Read More