Long Lulls Poems

Juvenilia: Early Poems V

Poetry
by Michael R. Burch

Poetry, I found you
where at last they chained and bound you;
with devices all around you
to torture and confound you,
I found you—shivering, bare.

They had shorn your raven hair
and taken both...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems X

These are early poems written in my teens and twenties.

Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear...

once starlight
languished
in your hair...

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret,
a pain
I chose to bear...

unleash
the torrent
of your hair...

and show me
once...

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Poems about Poems III

Radiance
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus?hard toil?
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes?dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea but...

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(Somewhere in late 18th-century Europe a friend, Laetitia, by way of a letter warns her beloved girlfriend, Euphoria--a young, gay and unsuspecting mistress--against the almost inevitable seductions of the infamous and maundering philanderer, Melancholia.).



Dear Euphoria,

...

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** I apologize, but if you're viewing this on a phone, it probably wont look right, as the browser page on a phone is not wide enough to indent the right edge properly. It was...

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Once wars were fought with sticks and stones
to flog the flesh and batter bones
and conquer lands, defending thrones -
though gods provoke, not one atones. 

The multitude (by hordes beset
with battle-ax or bayonet)
braved blades, dyed red...

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"The Pages"

Missing all those years
like a page you could turn, 
a book you could throw casually aside, 
to be eternally forgotten in electric shady libraries;
at some point you turned around, 
and remembered, what you long...

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Road Trip

The country, people, and the village,
All equal, as if, for the first time, 
All of that gave a fresher image,
Nay, 'tis but a relative vantage.
Save fresh road, to its left bears a sign.

"A few...

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Written 24 December 2023 
Placed 5th in :
No 1243 New Poem Only Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Brian Strand

                  ...

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The country, people, and the village,
All equal, as if, for the first time, 
All of that gave a fresher image,
Nay, 'tis but a relative vantage.
Save fresh road, to its left bears a sign.

"A few more...

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O to tune in to good times of childhood—
To re-live gone-by years, not just to brood,
To lighten dust-laden baggage’s dead tare,
To unburden mind of deadwood afloat, 
To fast-forward to dusky days of old, 
To turn...

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Lady dearest, fair Romeo, is this the name
the title you wish to bestow upon me
or is it one shared among multiple hearts shot at by multiple nets
I ask only in truth, in search of truth,...

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An ordinary young man in his twenties
Working by day, alone by night
Routine lulls him to feel forever serene

Never a new dream or fantasy
Living an obligation
Making his parents proud yet nothing causes him to become too...

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In Soft Glowing Mistress Flame Of The Beauty's Breath 
- a collaboration with Susan Ashley

In soft glowing mistress flame of thy beauty's breath
your heart swears purest love even unto its death
with future treasures that our...

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Sharpened pens were brutal swords; a war was forged
Blow after blow was struck, with blood rage engorged
Not one single word between them had been spoken
No flag of truce waved, or friendship offered as token

Nothing was...

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The skipper had sailed quite a few storms and survived

Strong as a cross hanging over an apocalypse’s altar he

Had weathered all seasons and crossed heaven and hell

Tempted his fate and good fortune at times but...

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In soft glowing mistress flame of thy beauty's breath
your heart swears purest love even unto its death
with future treasures that our great love will provide
our romance, more powerful than storm's surging tide.

My dearest, nothing more...

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These are lullabies I have written as poems. 

Midnight Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch

I.
A measureless rhythm rules the night—
few have heard it,
but I have shared it,
and its secret is mine.

To put it into words
is as to...

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Sappho's Lullaby
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Hushed yet melodic, the hills and the valleys
sleep unaware of the nightingale's call
while the dew-laden lilies lie
listening, 
glistening...
this is their night, the first night of fall.			

Son, tonight, a woman awaits...

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Sunny, hot, humid, summer morning, taking my first train ride
 I'm so excited and it's thrilling can't wait to go north where it's cool 
to stay with my grandpa and grandma.
Ma and pa say I'm...

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Khatia Buniatishvili's Tour de Force of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto N° 1 in B-flat minor on Zubin Mehta's 80th Birthday*

… the caged-beast terrified defying the donderbus blasts vollies of muskets and cannons heralding the charge cavernous...

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S   Porcupines of daylight shoot quills of crawling tint
 P      ruffled flashes pull me in swamps of anxieties
 L       I hide my...

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To me, fair friend, you never can be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eye'd,
Such seems your beauty still. 
~ William Shakespeare


I have looked into the mirror
Looking for a trace....a trace of...

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Life is a song, where you are the deep 
breathtaking words of your heartbeats,
in mellifluous melodies that play every day, 
beneath starlight and the shimmering sun, rhythmically with your sapphire emotions, 
my Venus.
Your rare beautiful...

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These Hallowed Halls
by Michael R. Burch

I

A final stereo fades into silence
and now there is seldom a murmur
to trouble the slumber
of these ancient halls.

I stand by a window where others have watched
the passage of time, alone,
not...

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