Long Looted Poems

Rejection Slips 2

The Shape of Mourning
by Michael R. Burch
 
The shape of mourning
is an oiled creel
shining with unuse,
 
the bolt of cold steel
on a locker
shielding memory,

the monthly penance
of flowers,
the annual wake,
 
the face in the...

Read More

Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

Read More

I know that even when others deceive me, you can't decieve me with your blossoming ink of truth.
Go tell them what has happened to our budget,
Tell them that our budget is missing in a broad...

Read More

Like the twelfth
juror in the play
I must say I am not
convinced
For I know a recipe
for trouble 
I have seen the
double standards
And I do not approve
this for Kenya
I will never approve
it, and neither
Would you, dear
friend of...

Read More

As October 1 approaches, HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY……………………
I have enormous tracts of land and vast volumes of water, but cannot feed myself.
So I spend $1 billion to import rice and another $2 billion on milk.
I produce...

Read More

Midterms are over and I killed ‘em (Yes, even physics) - yeah me! I spent the last two weeks like prisoners do, marking off days until - freedom. Now the pressure’s off and I can...

Read More

MV WILHELM GUSTLOFF

This was the worst ship disaster, with the greatest loss of life at sea
A German ship that was overloaded, with over 10.600, war refugees

Sank on the 30 January 1945 by a Soviet submarine...

Read More

Why, after everything, do I feel lost tonight?
Like a ship that drifted out of calm waters and suddenly find itself adrift in an ocean of uncertainty

Why, after promises that have been sealed by kisses, do...

Read More

A Song If this is My Country..

This Song is dedicated to the brutal Rape victim of Delhi and it’s a message for My Countrymen. The Original song is in Hindi on You Tube with Song...

Read More

Musings at Giza
by Michael R. Burch

In deepening pools of shadows lies
the Sphinx, and men still fear his eyes.
Though centuries have passed, he waits.
Egyptians gather at the gates.

Great pyramids, the looted tombs
—how still and desolate their...

Read More

It was back in summer, 2020,
when activists ran ‘round, burning cities,
convinced that they had to destroy their lives
since a thug with similar skin color died.

Amidst the BLM and Antifa
was a young woman known as Jacinta,
only...

Read More

Q:  Immediately after the Gog and Magog war what does the Sovereign LORD
      instruct the townspeople of Israel to do pertaining to Gog? Ezekiel 39:9

A:   "Then those...

Read More

The Atlantic ocean...,an unrelenting mistress

More'n ten thousand leagues under the sea
next to an octopus's garden in the shade.

OceanGate manufacturer
of the Titan Submersible,
which vessel that set out to reach
Titanic shipwreck with five passengers
officials believe the suffered
a...

Read More

What is poetry, if not a form of artistry, looking for beauty, through the calamity?
Why do we waste rhymes and peoples time just for us to shine in the spotlight of our own iniquity?
We stand...

Read More

More than 1,000 men, sometimes women
forced to clandestine detention centers.
Relatives mystified as to there whereabouts.
Some Russian troops bribed 
with money, weapons or ammunition.
Returning gave rise to evidence
of rape to both women and men,
constant beatings rendering...

Read More

Let Haiti be absolutely free
Haiti is the father of Freedom and Liberty
Haiti is the first nation to forever ban or abolish slavery
And the slave trade in the western hemisphere
And in the world
The first to practice...

Read More

You have raided my night again,
as the burst of a sudden storm,
sneaking into my loneliness,
at the most unexpected hour,
plunging me into swirls of pain
too deep for expression,
leaving me in utter disorientation.

I now drift aimless with...

Read More

Elegant in burnt orange afterglow, 
sparkling starlight opens the show.
Neighbors and strangers appear all aroun’, 
porch lights and car lights enlighten the town.

They arrive afoot and atop handlebars.
Tots wave from strollers like famed movie stars.
Mothers...

Read More

Still smarting from stupid scamming fraudsters...
five months ago to the day

Twas the cusp of tooth thousand
twenty three summer solstice,
when yours truly (a fool
and his money went separate ways)
mine cherished nest egg,
I would immediately miss
lesson immediately...

Read More

My fury and outrage remain unabated , it seethes like magma
and spreads itself throughout my being , it is barely contained
I shield it to keep the damage within , so it does not consume me
or...

Read More

'Knock, knock' on the door,
But, I won't let you in.
No, no.
The chamber of my heart is closed.
But 'knock, knock' you say.
Oh no!
I am stronger in this position than any other.
A huge 'liquidation' sign hung,
For months...

Read More

Over two hundred million people sleeps and wake without a leader,

A cloned effigy in a rock called "Aso"

too old to lead or long dead to be,

demented or dead, they cannot tell,

old age has come but...

Read More

QUESTIONS OF BALANCE: A JEREMIAD

Why is it at 70 politicians are still underage
To assume political offices	
And at 30 youths are overage to begin a professional career?

What divine strength hath a leader at 75
When a mandatory...

Read More

A gang of outsiders 
say they gonna reform the government,
with a bad boy at the helm
Juvenile adolescents, 
at Constitutional reform school,
are gonna be running everything
	Say what!
	You heard it right ...
	No he didn’t!
	Yeah, bad boy started...

Read More

COVID-19 pandemic analogous how indigenous peoples got felled...

Woebegone, enraged spirits
holographic images taciturn
journeying somberly aghast
at their stolen sacred lands... mourn
dead souls impossible mission

sabotaged aery mission endeavor
happy hunting grounds upheaval
witnessed gaunt bloody sojourn,
perhaps collective aboriginal ghosts return
to...

Read More