Long Mausoleum Poems

Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There...

Read More

Completing the Pattern
by Michael R. Burch

Walk with me now, among the transfixed dead
who kept life’s compact and who thus endure
harsh sentence here?among pink-petaled beds
and manicured green lawns. The sky’s azure,
pale blue once like their eyes,...

Read More

[Continued from ‘Terror Bugs: Part 2 - A Freezer Mice Adventure’]
__________

London’s streets resembled an al fresco mausoleum 
They tracked a trail of body parts which led to a museum
A thousand Terror Bugs were massed, in...

Read More

Beneath the pall of an eldritch moon, 
                           ...

Read More

I
The beggar outside the supermarket
You swore was picked up later
In a flashy car
Sat there in the sun for 8 hours
While you pissed & moaned
All the way home
To your bookless
Mausoleum 
With a chlorinated pool
Where one day...

Read More

We are all Nameless



What else is there to do
but to tell you who I am,
but most of all,
what I wish to find.

I am not the cavalier of the sun, 
but the caveat of phantasm.

I do...

Read More

   Open Contest  Vii 
Sponsor : Rob Carmack 
21/7/25]
_____________________

meet me on high in limpid luminescent sky
from whence you’ll catch my twigs perhaps
there I cloudless am guided to harlequin horizons
precision wings gliding pearly...

Read More

India, my motherland best as any mother
To me, at par with best world over

India's invention of Zero and Decimal 
Critical to scientific calculation, invention

Rich ancient culture of Harappan civilisation
Alexander, Babur, too could not resist invasion...

Read More

Given are we the name of the vampire, creatures of the forbidden,
Driven to live forever within the shadows, or die
Beneath a wooden steak, through our black hearts of pure evil,
But in reality, we are so...

Read More

In the moorlands of desires, 
I've forever sung choruses of
fertile faith, amidst the flock 
of bleeding birds, sprinkling
heartbeats on lush olive herbs, 
In the dream of retracing their 
scintillating season of beachy spring. 
'Hope' had...

Read More

These are modern English translations of epigrams and poems by the ancient Greek poet Erinna...

On a Betrothed Girl
by Erinna
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I sing of Baucis the bride.
Observing her tear-stained crypt
tell Death who dwells...

Read More

Here I raise my Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’ve come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Robert Robinson’s hymn Come Thy Fount of Every Blessing

To raise an Ebenezer: In Hebrew, Ebenezer means...

Read More

Its been a show of force since my ancestors first swam over the umbilical.
A strain of Loathing rings in our ears, A dog-whistle held by my personal demon, it's engraved with my name.
I smile when...

Read More

Lines more lunatic than the sun – 1
.
making my friendship with the water-pigeon does not mean 
that i’ve acknowledged all devotion of the land-lotuses to river
without putting any note of dissent  

i’m still plunging...

Read More

Your walk away into the echoing stillness
Of a crimson autumn sunset
Gently stepping over the leaf-strewn forest floor
As withered leaves under your feet
Bid you soft and gentle adieu.

The wild blossoms by your wayside smile
And lend you...

Read More

When cyan night's 
raspberry moon
is dipped in softness 
of the afterglows, 
I gaze at that glossy
first evening star between 
creamy fingers of 
my cherry palm, 
which trace lunar kins -
those angelic fireflies, 
twinkling and pirouetting,...

Read More

Did you even want to be found?
I took my shackles off and formed a search and rescue team 
But did you even want to be found?
You’ve been running all your life I think you’ve aced...

Read More

The stone, icy and arid
He brings it to the table, all the while a fable plays in his mind
He remembers a girl, a girl from long ago
His blade in hand, shining armor dawned,
He charges forwards,...

Read More

T
                                  ...

Read More

When the smoky quartz sun 
slumbers into a cold winter, 
    we see the aftermath of a garnet twilight, 
   it is then, we find rose stars 
that refuse to...

Read More

Before golden opportunity
(goes no argh hue mint 
the way of Long John Silver)
doth fade and dwindle
not necessarily cuz the missus
did (NOT) bribe and swindle
an ambition (for nor rhyme nor reason)
arose to kindle...

Affectionate communication
employing (figurative) gambol
probably...

Read More

If you had only heard me once

then you understand all, that all, what destroyed the goals
The castle of our future is under the ocean now, all debris
glittering in the deep from the sunlight of the...

Read More

‘Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust’

(No one is going to bust up MY insides,
sew my eyes and mouth shut,
drain my blood and pump me full of fluid
then seal me up in a...

Read More

But wherever you are, I no longer want to be:
for you are thunderstruck moonlight,
and I am a scarred sunset ~ a secret in saffron,
melting into the myth that floats forever, 
within silenced dunes of scorpion...

Read More

Mr. Officer, Mrs. Officer, here’s a message from my heart that my mind can’t halt.

This is the first and last time I plan to chat with you, please pay attention no talking Sir... Just listening.

Every...

Read More