Long Loosening Poems

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...

Read More

Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers IV



Neglect
by Michael R. Burch

What good are your tears?
They will not spare the dying their anguish.
What good is your concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm...

Read More

Sonnets XLII-LI

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water?
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter...
So near, yet so far.



A Surfeit of...

Read More

Poems about Children V

Pan
by Michael R. Burch

Among the shadows of the groaning elms,
amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves

Once there were paths that led to coracles
that clung to piers like loosening barnacles

where we cannot return,...

Read More

Explain your historical evolution radically, inclusively, expansively, good-humoredly; 
not carefully, deductively, reductively, sarcastically.

We once had a school of thought
among up and coming geneticists and historians
that the precursor to the regeneration of a species,
or even an...

Read More

Salve
by Michael R. Burch

for the victims and survivors of 9-11

The world is unsalvageable ...
but as we lie here
in bed
stricken to the heart by love
despite war’s
flickering images,

sometimes we still touch,

laughing, amazed,
that our flesh
does not despair
of love
as...

Read More

One day not so long ago 
I walked
Never alone
For the world 
Is always my home

It was a late
Spring snow
Yet I felt
Invisible red roses
Offering sweetest perfume
To my nose and soul

There’s such warmth 
In snow-filled winter
No bitterness
No...

Read More

MODERN SONNETS II

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.



In Praise of Meter
by Michael R. Burch

The...

Read More

Noticed I woke up so early in the morning today
Maybe, it was for a greater purpose in His eyes
I am feeling a positive vibe, wishing it would stay
Oh Lord, forgive my sins daily, for my...

Read More

So, I’ll be quite frank about how I feel…
Dealing with my demons, made out of steel
And I have been feeling numb all my life
Due to a lack of peace…dealt with hellfire strife

I don’t mean to...

Read More

Prolonged offal bout courtesy constipation... turgid song redux,
a worse hellish fate than perdition really sucks

As of early morning
today - September 8th, 2022,
I could not but barely move
mine whole body felt
analogous to sluggish mollusk
frequent constipation found...

Read More

Once upon a time,
in a Kansas City Public School,
There was a teacher named Builda.
We are all given the same rules.
Every year, the principal says,
"The first two weeks of school are
not for teaching any academics.
The first...

Read More

A young girl’s voice, lost in the data, cries out,
"Why are we here?"

Pixie Pixela, her words soft and low, murmurs,
"This world is yours, dear, a garden for stories to grow."
But her digital eyes hold a...

Read More

“Auld Lang Syne” - the most-sung New Year's Eve song

Courtesy Robert Burns
circa  (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796)
the National Bard,
Bard of Ayrshire
and the Ploughman Poet.

Two hundred sixty one orbitz elapsed
since brief existence of...

Read More

Brackish-gurgling days that
Unobtrusively slid along
Past tussock grass and curled up 
Balls of Fern...
Glued tightly onto structured vanes
Of outstretched frond.
Venerable Mosses reciting epic tales,
Measured throughout Metronomical 
Strains,
Chanting methodically in harmonious
Downturn - 
Wherein contained: 
Foreboding dialects delivered...

Read More

The first anniversary since being pelted...

with pistachio shells April 3rd, 2021
sitting in the exact same chair
yours truly sat three hundred 
and sixty five days ago. 

Watermelons, grapefruits, oranges...
lobbed at yours truly ruled out,
hence the missus...

Read More

I remember that day
	a early spring day
cold snow melted away
	and grass turning green

long cold winter gone
	days of shivering cold
dormant brown grass lay not
	beneath crystal blanket cold

spring task was before
	needing to be done
in cool early morn
	before...

Read More

Wasted verses ushers quirky pathetic oeuvre

HENCE....herewith, 
a post (traumatic) 
stressed disordered poetic whim 
to summarize fantasy
incorrigible lottery dreamer
paradise visage and eyes 
zapping, swatting, and battling 
a bulge with dollar signs
whets imagination with 
Mega Million ticket...

Read More

Pelted with pistachio shells April 3rd, 2021

Watermelons, grapefruits, oranges...
lobbed at yours truly ruled out,
hence the missus dreamt up bright idea
to enfilade me courtesy pistachio shells.

Rather than just hurl one at a time,
(she who unwittingly helped...

Read More

Tomatoes are red and perishable as are roses,
Specializing in their trade takes a heart.
Eggs are fragile,as are glasses,
It is not easy to hawk them around.
Honey is sweet but comes from a far.
That's why I sell...

Read More

I nudged my way through the throng of women and positioned myself at the starting line—an archway of variegated pink balloons.  It was mid-October, and a stiff autumn breeze swirled around my body numbing...

Read More

The formless spider, shaking 
            coins of mourning dew off her back, 
           ...

Read More

In the first week of December
The winter was cold and bitter
I stepped into the night and shivered and moaned
Enraptured by the wind and the vast unknown
In the corners of my fragile mind
I misplaced all sense...

Read More

Unlike as in the West, there was no dating in our time. After a formal meeting before the family members, the boy and girl will be allowed sometime for a private talk. (that too only...

Read More

We were drinking in the Eagles Nest; a cozy little pub,
one Friday evening after work completed in the scrub.
Most of us are timber workers, who get paid on Friday night,
so we’re all cashed up and...

Read More