Long Lawns Poems

Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There...

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[This poem 'No God Of  Mine' was seemingly confounding readers as
to its meaning. Ordinarily, if I felt a poem wasn't  cutting it, I'd delete
it, but on this occasion, I've been asked to explain it... so here goes.]


By...

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Completing the Pattern
by Michael R. Burch

Walk with me now, among the transfixed dead
who kept life’s compact and who thus endure
harsh sentence here?among pink-petaled beds
and manicured green lawns. The sky’s azure,
pale blue once like their eyes,...

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It was the weekend, and I was sleeping late that day,
Alone with the morning, while savoring marvels of May.

As I drowsed luxuriantly, at the outskirts of dreams,
I heard a strange sound, while soaking in gay...

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Unquotable quotes: Paris, the last week of the August reprieve – XXXV Part Two
                 II

The first signs reek tell-tale
Buffer-to-buffer...

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Unquotable quotes: Paris, the last week of the August reprieve – XXXV
 Part One                     ...

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I have been praying to God ever since I first understood the concept of a deity.  Although I have struggled through life with my acceptance of and belief in the religion I was force...

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My wife and I were apartment managers for 18 grueling years that rented exclusively to college students, and - though everything I claim here is either disgusting or scary - or BOTH....it’s all true!



Well, it’s...

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baseball, bird, change, childhood, games, holiday, lost,

“Seasonal Walks in the Park!”

A walk in the park after a springtime morning rainfall 
Is to hear the droplets fall from bent branches overhead
That can shock and moisten one’s...

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The victim list keeps growing

But no one really cares

The gristmill claims another one

Keep your hands in and don't stare

Hollywood is the golden land

The eternal silver screen

But many souls are lost here

A lot of greats or...

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Our lives and our time
Fired useless
Into the air
Toy cap gun shots
Those winter palaces unstormed
No tax offices ransacked
Where is utopia I asked
And no-one knew
They looked at me with pity
As if I still talked
To an imaginary friend
At...

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Cement, sand and gravel, blood, body and soul
Eternity bred from hell's darkest hole
Combine gruesome aggregates, hydrate the mix
Mould them and dry them, then stack up the bricks.

Thought in advance and precision laboured
Set automatic, eternity savoured
No...

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It's not that I mistrust you,
though sometimes I feel I must distrust
either me or you.

I ambivalently choose both.

So yes, of course, this is about your behaviors
in trust-relationship with mine,
aggressive and impulsive.
Behaviors of addiction
to a child's...

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In a house high on a hill an old man grows weak, many years have gone, he lays in his old bed,
Back in the day, a dashing young officer with a brilliant red uniform he...

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                                  ...

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What color are you?
You! You! You! You! You! You! I could do this all day. Smirk.
I am not talking about hair color, eye color, or skin color.
I am not talking about teeth color, or freckle...

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Summer that year was beasty hot and dry. The sidewalks sizzled and roasted my bare feet, and the heat permeated the already parched ground leaving huge cracks and crevices. The grassy lawns—yellow and burnt—smelled like...

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War, Is Unholy Hell

War is wicked rot and most holy hell
 man's evil is its murdering spell
Yet mankind never ever truly learns
 love and faith it arrogantly spurns

Poetry by the great Siegfried Sassoon
 glows like...

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Alien talk I can’t understand
A Pifflewig performed a handstand
He verbalised through his ass
Gross putrid wind he did pass
Like many blokes throughout the land!

I farted, perhaps it was fear
Foul wind was expelled from my rear
The pifflewig...

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I had for long been impoverished, as is often the case with writers,
Though I worked most diligently, at times even pulling all-nighters.

Rosy dreams kept me going, although times were frequently rough,
As black night fuels its...

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seasons keep m o v i n g 
 and s w i r l i n g
memories keep f l o w i n g 
and s h i f t i n g
through...

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I returned home after forty years to my home island of Hawaii. Its preferred nickname is the Big Island, lovingly a.k.a., the Orchid Isle, and yes, a.k.a., the Volcanic Island. Rightly named as the sole...

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I know of a river of more than average 
Sorts...
Meandering, when not dallying to maunder,
Between many differing contours 
And unruly contorts;
Where a privileged youth once
Happily sought -
Pursuing about his passions
In the traditional methods 
By which...

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  Oh, to be in Trinidad
when the hot scented currents flow,
  from East Dry River to Nariva 
chaconia and silk cotton tree grow.
  Where reachin’ palms whisper
across island reef and coconut lagoon,
...

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A variation of a variation on a theme by Dr. Seuss...

The Grinch's twin brother lived also alone,
Because he, too, was supposedly bad to the bone,
And a sad tale it is how his heart turned to...

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