Long Limbed Poems

In a phalanx of four: Peter, Lisa, Dave, and I, descended a waterfall of marble stairs - pilgrims to another time - as if we’d punched through a wormhole.

It’s a five-star bash at the palace...

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Climate Change Haiku
by Michael R. Burch

late November:
climate skeptics scoff
but the geese no longer migrate.



The King of Beasts in the Museum of the Extinct
by Michael R. Burch

The king of beasts, my child,
was terrible, and wild.
His roaring...

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III

Kept out
   kept out he was: muzzled and shut out
from mothering social approval
    and the usual conning courtesies

Kept shut
  Involuting in the hippo-lipped paranoïa
from the darling eyes of his...

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With canoe and hook of a jawbone
  below a great fish Maui snared,
and his brothers half-crazed behaving
  leapt and gouged in frenzy craving.
From Palliser Bay to Cape Reinga 
 (departing place of the...

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When Pigs Fly
by Michael R. Burch

On the Trail of Tears,
my Cherokee brothers,
why hang your heads?
Why shame your mothers?
Laugh wildly instead!
We will soon be dead.

When we lie in our graves,
let the white-eyes take
the woodlands we loved
for...

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Two Aloha-shirted Hawaiians 
of generous girth were strumming 
their ukuleles 
on a small stage in front of the hotel’s poolside bar
in the late afternoon, 
rehearsing for the night’s performance. 
It must have been the low...

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The Perfectionist is Listening

the rich are committing suicide
and taking us with them
the prosthetic limbed bastards
Fort Darwin tottering on fewer stilts
once the masters of the universe
presently picking through garbage
looking for an Icarus to pilot
some way back...

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Her tears lost to rain ...
Dorothea stood in the cold mist,
her habit soaked through, though she cared not.
The gray markers spread out before her like stone soldiers at attention,
as if she were a commander of...

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On the precipice it stands,
loose-limbed with a sinewy grace,
body taut with an implied swagger,
face, grinning, a sun-dappled gold. 
Unclouded by the cataract of cynicism, 
its eyes survey a horizon heat-hazed with 
a thousand promises. 

As...

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The snow lay heavy on the ground
‘Til just below the knee
Reflecting blue sky all around
As far as we could see

The temperature was just right
For the snowball fans
But we had set much higher sights
On building a...

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Life’s Timeless Driftwood

Peering back at the shadow stretching,
continuance knows well the peaceful silhouettes from horizon's light,
ancestral sequences having frequented one’s shore many times.

All is as it has been.

One’s longevity holds firm,
like isolated fingers protruding in...

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AT THREE O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING 

trucks toil the city’s streets, 
a minuet of practiced precision, 
to the pulsating rhythm, 
to the incessant beat. 

they parade and pause, 
they roll-on. stop. 
roll-on. stop. roll-on. stop....

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We clambered on board the train, 
amidst the heat and jostling bodies scrambling in humid air 
that swirled about us. Chatter, noise, whistles 
and barks of laughter. As laconic guards look on 
with impassive and...

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Alfred Joyce Kilmer Tribute ''Trees'' via rehash VIDEO presentation:

Alfred Joyce Kilmer, penned name, 'Joyce Kilmer,'
was killed by a sniper's bullet in WWI at 31 years old,
20   July   30,   1918....

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I am from humor, wit, and playing nice,
to constantly writing on my own device.
I am from softly sassy smiles,
From running and running for many miles.

I am from a family filled with green eyes,
From not giving...

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I shed, today, tomorrow’s tears. 
They flowed unseen within, 
yet tarnished still the golden 
final time together – not weeks, 
nor even days, but hours, 

the minutes pressing in tight embrace. 
Were it not for...

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Meadow

Breezes ripple through the grasses bodyand depth.
 A breathing soft mass of seeded heads wave en-mass.
Multitudes of bent heads gaze around,
 Inhaled and softly released as one.

  
Meadow flowers nod in small shapes,
Stirred amongst...

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Winter approaches, 
riding swiftly on northerly winds.
Leaves have begun to fall, 
tumbling upon Autumn breezes.
A chill fills the air, eager to settle in,
for seasonal changes that are taking place
signal that the time has drawn near
to...

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Small rolling hills, valley plots,
nothing regimented,
graves not scattered, but placed
among natural features.
It’s beautiful here
especially in the Fall.
The Maples are tall and burning bright.

There are new graves among the old.
I thank all of them
for being here...

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The dresses on the rack were never mine.
Their seams whispered secrets I couldn’t keep,
stitched for girls who walked like petals in the breeze,
who folded themselves small enough to disappear.
I was never small. Never light. Never...

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Lanky’s Chronicles

We meet a long-limbed white boy that said his family was owners of slaves.
He was a leggy ole boy and bony angular in his physical ways.
Uncle Tom was from his past.
He described plantation life...

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"Outside Closed Circles"



Tall limbed stories
are stilts
to walk softly 
aloft the shallows
casting shadows 
bruised in purple

a double degree 
in stray fellows

luxury is the 
comfort calling
in front of all the Lost
pressed between pages 
keeping safe between lines
transparent...

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what is it that my soul is searching for
along this empty beach of thoughts
meaningful entreaty
placid as these gentle tossed waves
I wonder, what do I implore

upon the news of dismal forecast
the palm fronds move in gentle...

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AUDIO: Vienna Boys Choir, 'Pachelbel's Canon in D Major'

Trees II By Alfred Joyce Kilmer's Admirer

Methinks thus I
        shalt naught e'er see, 
A poem lovely
    ...

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Andrew came in behind Daniel Dias, 
Brazil’s most popular swimming star, 
Three times at Rio: 2 bronze, 1 silver, 
In the 50m butterfly, IM and the back.

He’s from Glasgow, born short limbed, 
On the 29th...

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