Long Lens Poems

“Forever”



When The Terrors came,
The Uncontrollable Ones,
she closed her eyes
and listened for the notes
her mother had planted
amongst the deep blues,
beds of Forget-Me-Nots,
she followed the 
labyrinthine trail 
and through a gate unhinged,
it would seem destroyed, thrown aside,
she...

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State of the Art (IV)

These are my "ars poetica" poems about the art and craft of writing poetry. 



Hearthside
by Michael R. Burch

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep...”  — W. ...

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Wonderland
by Michael R. Burch
 
We stood, kids of the Lamb, to put to test
the beatific anthems of the blessed,
the sentence of the martyr, and the pen’s
sincere religion. Magnified, the lens
shot back absurd reflections of each...

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SELF REFLECTIONS

These are poems about mirrors, images, self-image, reflections, impressions and self-reflection. 

Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch 

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she's grossly...

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Poems about Poems VI

The Board
by Michael R. Burch

Accessible rhyme is never good.
The penalty is understood?
soft titters from dark board rooms where
the businessmen paste on their hair
and, Walter Mitties, woo the Muse
with reprimands of Dr. Seuss.

The...

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Sonnets LXI-LXX

Erin
by Michael R. Burch

All that’s left of Ireland is her hair?
bright carrot?and her milkmaid-pallid skin,

her brilliant air of cavalier despair,
her train of children?some conceived in sin,

the others to avoid it. For nowhere
is evidence of...

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Poems about Butterflies and Bees



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...



Album
by Michael R. Burch

I caress them—trapped in brittle cellophane—
and I see how young they were,...

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Villanelles

The villanelle is a poetic form based on repetition, with a double refrain. 



Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day, 
with 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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Nucleotidings
by Michael R. Burch

“We will walk taller!” said Gupta,
sorta abrupta,
hand-in-hand with his mom,
eyeing the A-bomb.

“Who needs a mahatma
in the aftermath of NAFTA?
Now, that was a disaster,”
cried glib Punjab.

“After Y2k,
time will spin out of control anyway,”
flamed...

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Truth is a feather 
pushed off to the other side.

Truths are a body of feathers
within which our bodies reside.

OK, students of life’s healthiest purposes and meanings,
it’s time to regather, if you would be so kind.

Namaste.

[Silence]

[My...

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Imagine we live in an eco-normative story
of competing for wealth-commodities,
cash piled in quantifiable currencies,
collectively blinded to our Win-Win
natural economic,
ecological,
psychological,
biological health and well-being 
nurturing value roots.

One day, our PolyCultural Received View
unveils a co-operatively synergetic evolution 
of...

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The title of this talk today,
"Win-Win Politics of New Feminist Economics"
suggests questions,
more than emasculating 
definitively deductive
reductive
answers.

Would you imagine
a minority-identified Buddhist,
more likely as a feminist?
or culturally comfortable
with political and economic Left-brain domination,
monotheistic competing for all-consuming
ritualistic servicing?

How...

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Yang, dear.

Yes, my lovely Yin.

Why do you map Game Theory
onto EcoFeminist Political Theory?
It comes across as either just confusing
or, even worse,
vaguely sexist.

Really!
How sexist?

Well you seem to associate competitive ZeroSum WinLose
with strong aggressive patriarchal effectiveness
for defending...

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News release woman gets only 
four years for stabbing five people 
with a large butcher knife saying 
I’m going to Mort you why would 
Wisconsin concealed a butcher 
knife dangerous weapon out the 
hands of...

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Flirt with Whitney
Flirt with fear 
Life is good
But I rather be anywhere but here
Body aches from pushing out tears
Driving on the road of life
Eyes is watery
So I can't steer 
And I'm getting dizzy 
Stomach very...

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The ugly head of the Original Intent issue
co-arises with what were our ForeFather Patriarchal Patriots
thinking and feeling to leave out prohibitions against antiChristian degeneracy,
and to put in permissions for antiChristian degeneracy.

No.
Wait.
That's not right.
We could not...

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Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear . . .

once starlight
languished
in your hair . . .

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret . . .
a pain
I chose to bear . . .

unleash
the torrent
of your hair . ....

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Red light, the neon beer sign on the distant wall reflects off the long expanse of polished bar top, overpowering the quiet brown wood. It’s after lunch, only a few people in to stir the...

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Key CapitalistYang/CreolistYin EcoHistoric Concepts

I find a fuzzy irony in this morning’s early search for a new journal notebook, having filled my last from what had been, five years ago, an inconceivably high pile of empty...

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Thus it begins—
A free-verse epic
Into the mind of
A writer and an idiot—
A romantic and, 
Often a pessimist
Conjoined in arbitrary glory
Are the thoughts and words 
Of one overly-worked mind—
Charismatic and, of course,
On the pushover, pitiful
And usually...

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Step Forward McCarthy vs. Hellman 

What is this The Digital Crucible of Truth?

On a stage of scrutiny,  
          titans c l a s h— ...

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I ran out of breath on the road to Mumbai ...

    Not for sake of dust or smog or even health. I had rounded a curve on
    my motorcycle,...

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What cooperative evidence
could we final climate find
for WinWin cooperation lovers
including LeftBrain secular humanities
inviting no more or less valueflow
than RightBrain WiseElder root-branch dipolar etchings
neurologically ancient bipolar temporal systemic 
body-branch, mind-root DNA enscriptured holonic trees,
DNA  river...

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He reignited my creative passion when he reentered my life
His can sense to the core how I am feeling and asked me right away to be his wife

Though it's been 45 years we have known...

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