Long Manacles Poems

Poems about Poems (II)

Kin
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

1.
Shrill gulls,
how like my thoughts
you, struggling, rise
to distant bliss?
the weightless blue of skies
that are not blue
in any atmosphere,
but closest here...

2.
You seek an air
so clear,
so rarified
the effort leaves...

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State of the Art (III)

These are my "ars poetica" poems: the ones about the art and craft of writing poetry in a modern world that doesn't always recognize the artists or their work. 



Come Down
by...

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Enheduanna is the first writer we know by name. She created the first poetry anthology and hymnal, circa 2250 BC, in ancient Sumer. She was the daughter of King Saragon the Great. 

Lament to the...

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When they came to a side hall Joulupukki stopped.
     “Do you feel the magic?”  He said to her.  She nodded.  He stepped around the corner, on the far...

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Recluse by dint of circumstance

Proud anonymous troglodytes 
forerunners of mine
confronted threats less horrific
than forty fifth commander in chief
of United States of America.

He/him (matted hair, ratty, scrawny, 
and tetchy ugly villain)   
scurried into dark...

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The Story of History  

Beyond those beaten days’ depleted daylight
Beyond the bathos of a pandemic bondage
With  the resurrected  sashay’s charmed night
Down in the dumps   at the pretentious  proscenium
A ...

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My jubilant latent, nascent poetic tribute to black history month

Which acknowledgement ought to be year round,
similar to altruistic, humanistic, and philanthropic
unconditional acceptance and respect
crafted with the following words 
mostly written January 23rd, 2023,
cuz I, (a...

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My nascent poetic tribute to black history month

more apropos and alternately titled: 
praise to thee people 
of variegated melanin color,
whose immense understated improvements
and enhancement of webbed wide world
worth more than paltry words
of yours truly can...

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The Antics Of A Yoyo Thief

Potential life of as juvenile delinquent
(ala bam mean future streetwise thug)
stopped dead in the tracks – manacles
the above two lines hopefully gives hint
nearly changing changing life of one boy
an undersized...

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beMUSEd
by Michael R. Burch

Perhaps at three
you'll come to tea,
to have a cuppa here?

You'll just stop in
to sip dry gin?
I only have a beer.

To name the "greats":
Pope, Dryden, mates?
The whole world knows their names.

Discuss the "songs"
of...

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Pity Clarity
by Michael R. Burch

Pity Clarity,
and, if you should find her,
release her from the tangled webs
of dusty verse that bind her.

And as for Brevity,
once the soul of wit—
she feels the gravity
of ironic chains and massive...

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Enheduanna (circa 2285-2250 BCE), the daughter of the famous King Sargon the Great of Akkad, is the first ancient writer whose name remains known today.

Temple Hymn 15
to the Gishbanda Temple of Ningishzida
by Enheduanna 
loose translation/interpretation...

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Poems about Poets IV



The Princess and the Pauper
by Michael R. Burch

for June Kraeft

Here was a woman bright, intent on life,
who did not flinch from Death, but caught his eye
and drew him, powerless, into her spell
of...

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Heretic condemned to burn at stake
reprieve eleventh hour granted clemency
commuted death penalty
criminal sentenced solitary isolation
rat infested dungeon ultimate punishment
doled out after protracted proceedings
courtesy amazing graceful puffed dragon
unwittingly delivered merciful respite.

Cowled ascetic busied himself
exotic gaseous/ liquified...

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she carries the child on tired hips rested on chains ‘round her waist

wasted on freedom designed to serve a white man’s lustful desire

branded inferior as time repeats itself and the pain knows no end


a tattoo...

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Artfully dodging explosive solutions
pretending shackles restrained prisoner 
lobbed pseudo Molotov cocktails 
kindly, loosely, and mutinously linkedin 
liberal short (make believe) chain
leashed faux abysmal isolated confinement
former courtly poet,
who consumed prison fare 
equalling bread and thin gruel
poetical,...

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Those trademark circular elements of style in vogue every four years
When the crème de la crème of the athleticism 
presents itself on the world stage
Suspending and transcending any present day internecine conflict
Allowing, enabling, and proffering...

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Love has many faces; takes many wildly varied forms 
A  shape-shifter of the heart she leads us a merry dance, 
Giggling girlishly from behind a golden mask...
One moment she is a capricious imp, 
Pinching...

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Do not tell me anymore of mythical mermaids lurking
In the fine gradient of the sea, eyes heavy with a snaring desire,
A monalisa smile framed on their faces or of

Sexy mermen and smiling salacious simpletons
To stereotype...

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Born shackled with globe sized
yoked millstone around my neck
rivaling the world Atlas shrugged,
or outsize boulder Sisyphus

eternally obliged to toil uphill
steepest mountain side
in concert with
Battlestar Galactica pièce de résistance
ear splitting discordant cacophonous din.

Simultaneously analogous twin tower
of...

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Green, gargantuan park
Scattered everywhere the tiny tots
PRECIOUS AND BEAUTIFUL GIFTS 
OF THE HEART
With their funny antics, woolly babbling, scuff-lings
And in ecstatic bliss they play together
forming one large circle
Where prevails no differentiation
Of colour, caste, class, religion


The...

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I venture on a falling tide,
my little ship the current rides
down river to the open sea,
from Carrick Roads first to be free.

Anthony Head I hoist the sails
and now the boat leans to its rail
as winds...

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Woman in Chains 

Inner child blinks back tears through the cheval glass
At a bruised reflection staring back, 
Battered by the hand of perfection,
Wearing chains in glimmering pearls deception,
Beauty and the beast - beauty now turned...

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I have seen this world,
The signs around us 
That gives direction to the quickest
Way down the dark road of destruction
Ignorance has disrupted the connection
Of our optic fibers 
So many of us can’t see
That we are...

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(or, "Your Old Stomping Ground")

There’s a secretary that I know
whose husband recently died
But life somehow continues as before
She has to keep replicating the myth
that everything’s all right –
A savant of the copy machines
A mannequin in...

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