Long Liquor Poems

Let me take a little sip
Of your blessed, breathtaking brilliance that will numb...
This pain I have in this heart of stone
The voices in my head won't leave me alone
I thought I was on my own,...

Read More

Verse 6: I've given up love countless times 
I needed to pay up for my heartbroken crimes
I already repented for my sins that made my high hopes paper-thin
Don't you feel that envy from deep within?...

Read More

Ah yeah ah oh
Ah yeah ah oh
So scared and fragile...
So weak for only awhile...
Unfaithful me is as cold as glaciers of disgrace glamorized 
Unfaithful you is as hot as fire of desire, burning...you and I...

Read More

Fahr an' Ice
by Michael R. Burch

From what I know of death, I'll side with those
who'd like to have a say in how it goes:
just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker),
and real fahr...

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

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...

Read More

I stood at the top of our dirt driveway looking back at our two-story house. It's kind of a long house where, from our second-floor windows, you can see cars driving on the lane road...

Read More

Feel more than free to take a quick tour into my mind's eye
Then, you'll find that you're on my mind and I don't know why 

Dare to wonder Where to wander
Dare to wonder What I...

Read More

Religious gatherings happen on Thursday as well in Bean’s Cathedral.  The Scribes would read from The Doctrine of Crop and Harvest and the Bean people who attended would be blessed for a greater existence...

Read More

Two new crutches and two double shots of Bushmills Irish Whiskey enabled Joe Faherty to move from the back seat of Moira Murphy's 1976 Buick into Eagan's Funeral Home for Tim McGillicuddy's wake. At 87,...

Read More

Thirty years ago, long before ISIS started executing Kurds, Muslims and Christians, I hired a Pakistani Muslim as an art director in Chicago. I was an Irish Catholic editor putting out a small national magazine....

Read More

On the night before Christmas, alone in my house, 
Sorrow gnawed at my soul, like a ravenous mouse.
Entombed in my blankets, I struggled to sleep,
Ready to snap if I counted more sheep.

I rose at the...

Read More

And that is why... this platform is here for answers they can't deny...
It's a truth within a complexity that is standing high...
Let us follow the roots and explore the depths of its grand design...
Cause every...

Read More

Paddy didn't want to go to his wife's family reunion. He told her that in the same nice way he had told her in years past so as to avoid other reunions over the many...

Read More

/^Inspired by "Someone Else" by Miley Cyrus, "All of Me" by John Legend and many other awesome songs^\

(Spoken) 
Hold me close
Stop pretending that I'm not aware of what's happening 
Anything goes
So, quit trying to be...

Read More

I am rated R for recovery
Island of empty, icky isolation
Flames of uncertain frustration 
Fix me, I'm a vase of vibrant love
Find me wings to fly, my beloved dove 
I don't mind being blind and left...

Read More

This was last Saturday night. We were at a rooftop party in downtown New Haven thrown by ‘DocHouse.’ Doc-House is kind of a frat-house, owned by Dr. Melon, where he and seven doctoral students live....

Read More

The Whiskey Bottle Wish

 	One late summer night outside a saloon in the mid-west, an intoxicated Dusty Rogers, stumbles out of the Bar nearly taking one of the revolving doors with him. As he flutters...

Read More

Mechanism 1
Part #1

The things outside of my window dry out my eyes. The egg that I saturated has mold on it. The moon decays when I speak. The stars are all just God’s germs. Lately...

Read More

I'm lownly and have nobody and nothing 
You had me wondering where you've been...singing and crying and yelling and silently dying, wingless and willing to fly away and bring some happiness in this world of...

Read More

I grew up and out on a four family-owned,
and cooperatively-organized,
extended matriarchal farm.

Four interdependent 1940s through 1970s patriarchally managed businesses,
without substantial questions about who should wear pants,
yet with a surprising matriarchal cooperative understory.

The boxers outnumbered the...

Read More

Here's the deal, folks...
   This is, as indicated, the 2nd HALF of this fairly lengthy poem. Due to Poetry Soup's file-size limitations, this piece had to be posted in 2 parts. 
 ...

Read More

I had no clue it was Valentine’s Day
Because no one said happy Valentine’s Day
I had no clue it was valentines’ Day
Because I had no one to share the Day
I ventured into another world
And drifted off...

Read More

Verse 1: Falling into place the moment you caressed my face
Bathing in the waters of woe...wishing to find your ship of grace 
Spinning around all over the place,
Trying to find my place, but you invade...

Read More

Your drinker's doom
Turned out to be a tranquil tomb
Is there any room
To bring out your brilliant, legitimate bloom?

You linger around my restful haven,
My darksome and lonesome, yet pretty satisfying bedroom
You stared at me vacantly and...

Read More