Long Luckless Poems

Athenian Epitaphs II

These are ancient Greek epitaphs for lost family and friends, including dogs and other animals ...

Now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night: 
his owner's faithful Maltese... 
but will...

Read More

Yet at this very moment the cathedral was crumbling
down upon the cries of foresaken refugees, 
the monastery's walls wobbling from war's wreckage, 
and as the black bursts billowed into sun drenched brutality
with the bodies of...

Read More

Stricken with anguished nausea

Written three years ago tomorrow, 
yet superimposed (likened to 
emotional palimpsest) upon 
mental state of yore
recent post traumatic stress 
triggered courtesy war
torn legally tendered greenbacks, 
where enemy bonded, heisted, and netted 
mine...

Read More

Support Your Local Po' Whet (Hick) Bummer, i.e. me

Freedom from onset of pervasive gloom 
(attendant with profusely perspiring palms, 
hut tree men duh us aggravation), would be 
a dog send to this melon collie bow...

Read More

Anomalous poetic contrivance evokes...
googling inept kickstarted lame outré jaunty hokum

(alternately titled:
Random screenshot within me noggin
instantaneously transforming, 
née devolving into gobbledygook.)

I got born with poker faced physiognomy,
no matter yours truly doth not play cards
though self same...

Read More

growing up too soon

	you said: is there anything more excruciating than lagging behind
						being passed by
	a hasbeen
				still knocking on portals
twitching toes twirling thumbs
         in fidgety drawn-curtained waiting rooms

and...

Read More

Sappho Translations XIII by Michael R. Burch

In these translations the fragment numbers are mostly Lobel-Page. All translations are by Michael R. Burch and should be so credited if they are used in any way, shape...

Read More

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...

Read More

Fifty years of bustin’ ass, I never had a dime,
If I had any balls at all, I’d’ve chose a life of crime;

I never owned a brand new truck, a flat TV or yacht,
I figured I...

Read More

Firearms magazine offer manifold big bang for their buck, 
many ear rational per son or daughter loves advocate, the late chuck 
heston (now a shooting star occasionally visiting Earth from celestial vault) 
  ...

Read More

Who are you?. And where are you from?. The document enquired
I was not in the mood for this for I was feeling tired
The first bit was quite easy, as I simply wrote my name
The second...

Read More

(Taking headlines from October 1964,
the poem revisits our shared experience ...)

Monday 5: Fifty-Four East Germans Tunnel to Freedom

Back then, it was not in doubt,
(Richard Burton Tony Quinn):
the Wall was there to keep us out?
No –...

Read More

Solitude breeds malignant nemesis
couched as woe seated heavily
within mine angst
riddled quavering psyche
blinding clairvoyance 
debilitates enthusiastic frequency
wavelengths propagate unfounded
probable future destitution

predicated upon intractable lifetime mired
within groveling penuriousness
"dirt poor" accursed fate
pervaded plentiful not ready 
for prime time...

Read More

There are many road that lead to hell,
but there is a peculiar one
that will surely get you there as well
Route 666
It's not on any road map,
can't be found by no G.P.S.
Could be located anywhere,
it's the...

Read More

Oh love – 
What dire straits you have landed in…
What great peril, what curse lies, 
Heaped upon your innocent lamb’s skull 
You were born under an unlucky star, 
Poor unsuspecting slaughter-house soul,
And here am I...

Read More

'Killing" time while homebound until...,
a cure gets distilled and/ or found
for pandemic, thus... I expound.

(Yupper - courtesy coronavirus CORVID-19),
how ja guess my good smear it in friend?! -
within Perkiomen Valley, Pennsylvania
toyed with thought to withhold...

Read More

There are no laws designed by man that mean a thing out where,
the drying sun on pastel lands can’t lead all to despair,
where frightened eyes can see for miles across the saltbush plain,
where death becomes...

Read More

I was reading Michelle MacDonald’s superb piece of art “Sea Shanty”
Secretly, under the haiku master Katherine Stella’s “Yum Yum Tree”
When smiling Carol Brown, invited me to her grand “Surprise Party”

The charming lady of the soup...

Read More

O ancient forlorn lonesome heath! 
O thou that saddest jewel sells! 
O Hardy's favorite rustic god ! 
In heart of world Thy phantom dwells

I can see in thine ancient heart
Where Tess her Sorrow for thee...

Read More

Humans shaming us with deeds vile as any satanic rite
Lumps of flesh dumped in alleys under cover of darkness
Blessed not to know life, spared a sorry plight
From biological parents who met to sate compelling desires...

Read More

bloated girth deceased,
not surprisingly packed orotund
size appetite conveniently weighted
gravity helped fell
giant gourmand chowhound
demise linkedin automatically tightened
neckerchief doubled as noose clothbound

neck, the luckless bard dead -
poets society he didst cofound
oh captain my captain compound
suffering no more,...

Read More

Though A Destitute Alteh Kocker...

(albeit boyish), I tell myself with pride
always look on the bright toothless side
of life, this nonconformist tried
his darnedest with
threadbare trappings to abide

despite bristling, harumphing,
and lamenting luckless life,
while woe didst ride
shotgun squeezing...

Read More

Above the roller-coaster rain clouds, 
there's a moment when the wing tip of the plane 
cuts seamlessly into serene blue as it banks 
over Chicago. It's a layover in the sunlit limbo 
of the hope...

Read More

Affliction with comprehension,
now plain as day
predisposition to experience
(particularly abstract) cognitive
acquisition assailed at bay

posits me to suspect mental
deficiency within gray
matter of yours truly, whose
academic track record lay
in abyssal ruins, and

as three score orbitz round
the sun, yours...

Read More

Written: July 1st, 2023
______________________________________________________________
Sublime blue wings made of limestone
Soften your glide in the wind calm zone.
Flying low over the coast in search of prey.
Salted treats for the crab and winkles sway

Floating gently upward on narrow...

Read More