Long Lichens Poems

Kin
by Michael R. Burch

O pale, austere moon,
haughty beauty ...

what do we know of love, 
or duty?



Daredevil
by Michael R. Burch

There are days that I believe
(and nights that I deny)
love is not mutilation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There are...

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Daredevil
by Michael R. Burch

There are days that I believe
(and nights that I deny)
love is not mutilation.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There are tightropes leaps bereave:
taut wires strumming high
brief songs, infatuations.

Daredevil, dry your eyes.

There were cannon shots’ soirees,
hearts...

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Epigrams VI

These are humorous epigrams including a form I call "Less Heroic Couplets." 



Less Heroic Couplets: Mini-Ode to Stamina
by Michael R. Burch
 
When you’ve given so much
that I can’t bear your touch,
then from a safe...

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Epigrams VII

A question that sometimes drives me hazy: 
am I or are the others crazy?
—Albert Einstein, poetic interpretation by Michael R. Burch


The Whole of Wit
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Richard Moore

If brevity is the...

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Chinese Translations III

Quiet Night Thoughts
by Li Bai aka Li Po
translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Moonlight illuminates my bed
as frost brightens the ground.
Lifting my eyes, the moon allures.
Lowering my eyes, I long for home.


The Solitude of Night
by...

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Epigrams V

Are mayflies missed by mountains? Do stars
applaud the glowworm’s stellar mimicry?
—Michael R. Burch



Teach me to love:
to fly beyond sterile Mars
to percolating Venus. 
—Michael R. Burch



Byron
was not a shy one,
as peacocks run.
—Michael R. Burch

When I...

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Canada Jays

Four seasons ‘round, Canada jays are found,
Perched in tree branches, safe and sound,
Resting after flying throughout the North,
In the Canadian boreal forests.
Heard and not seen unless it’s their intention
To disturb the silence, making known...

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I love to sit and watch the Roosevelt Elk for hours.  The Roosevelt Elk named for Theodore Roosevelt, it's my favorite animal in the wild.  They are the largest of the four remaining...

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Prosperity proved no defense against the years or changing fates writ in the stars - nor masters of arms foresaw the weapons that unseated their lineages, leaving only ghostly bones where legions rallied beneath dancing...

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The umbilical cord
connecting Left-dominant Yang
with Right-integrative Yin
stretches back to alga and fungus,
symbiotically congressed as bilateral lichen.

Lichens are a couple of specifics
within which the hybrid whole revolutionarily erupts
more than the zero-sum
of its equivalent dipolar alga and...

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We love to make lists,
To describe, name, number.
How can it have value,
If not on my list.
As logger I stand
Before the green forest,
The numbered trees
Are ones to cut.
The forest cut down
Is only to me
Bigger box to...

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My eyes are platinum, an abyss
They reflect the midday sky, a blue relic
I blink back molten metal tears

These garments are loose bleeding petals
They hang like rolls of skin, peeling and shedding
Billowing and sagging a Gothic...

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A constant vein of nature’s blood cascading rock and sand,
Flushing grains of dislodged mud. The beat in a mountain band,
Currawongs sing melody. Black Cockies rasping call;
The whispering breeze that shakes the trees, near a waterfall.

Sassafras...

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The Roosevelt Elk
The Roosevelt Elk 

A beautiful,  majestic creature, that walks with head up high with pride  that stands as tall as a horse, with a rack of antlers with many points that...

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It’s early and the small town has thrown back it’s duvet of darkness and it is light.
It is slowly and with the quiet of morning beginning to stir.

Morning! Morning!
Cheery greetings from unknown passers-by.
As warm as...

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when i arrived on earth
I must have seen the rain through the window
it was saturday in the hospital room
busy women in white
fluttering snowflakes in my made-up memory
giving injections measuring pressure stopping bleeding
a half-naked and thin...

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I
Proudest of graves as get grey mass of moss, 
Where goats greedily browse young sprouts still green, 
The graves as get grey that had grandeur seen, 
Tallest of fames fade fainter with dull gloss. 
The...

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Beneath the Nefaryes timeless, tangled roots.
where dreamscents rot and anger hoots,
Pokenose stirs with a spore-slick grin
not to charm, but to drag you in.

"You reek of want without refrain,
of wounds that swell instead of wane"
said Rose...

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the third floor of a six-storied building,
silent room of three family members,
father, mother and a son

the son corporate job holder
in this populous city,
punctuality, sincerity, responsibility
makes him busy in his daily job

in the parent's room
crystal eye-glasses...

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I Adamantly Refuse to Care or Show Concern,
After All
I Served Sincerely and Genuinely, Now I Sever
Hoaxed Mundane Emotions that No Longer Appeal to My Growth
Flippantly Burning Icy Bridges 
This is More or Less What You...

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Toward Scent fold’s vale they cleaved the green,
Where wind runs thick with things unseen.
“Is it justice you seek or just her place?”
Lotus said, his voice low, draped in grace.
The blossoms paused, their vows unsealed,
Each plucked...

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This oak tree and me, we’re made of the same stuff.. Carl Sagan


why lean on my
unmoving breast?

breathe my rest...
climb my milieu...

hull me out
an adventure.

soar amidst
the forest of my branches.

i’ve squirmed as you shimmy up
and scream...

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A mossy pebbled path I took,
                             ...

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The sun in its melancholy phase
dazed swirls, sun dial spinning
Pale moon but a mere shadow
empty ball, psychedelic haze

Into the bleary copse I tread
for a twilight detox of sorts
nerves on end, psyche suspends
light with shadows, a...

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Some days are almost crystalline in the memory: they shine like diamonds in the blue perspective of the distant past.

winter wind
a broken branch
lit by gray-green lichens

New Year's day,1981, was like that. I spent the day...

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