Long Maw Poems

Salvation of a Formalist, an Ode to Entropy
by Michael R. Burch

Entropy?
God's universal decree
That I get to be
Disorderly?
Suddenly
My erstwhile boxed-in verse is free?
Wheeeeee!



Eternal Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm...

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Sonnets XLII-LI

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water?
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter...
So near, yet so far.



A Surfeit of...

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"You really wanna know? Cause I'll tell ya if you really wanna know. You'll be thinkin' I'm crazy before I'm done, but I'll tell ya... ifn' you really wanna know."

The day started like any other,...

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He just appeared to me, like wispily curling 
Chimney smoke, 
One grim and early morning in the very midst of 
Decembers briefest days, on the highest slope,
Toiling through my daily round; where, slowly 
Driving up...

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* This poem was written for a contest originally, but was used by Professor Anne-Marie Thornton of Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, to teach her WAR POETRY class in the spring semester of 2017. My...

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Her small angelic face ...

Once a place where broad smiles bloomed like butterflies on marigolds,
is streaked with the furrows that countless tears have etched into the
layers of dust and dirt and explosive residue that now...

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There is so many stories telling a child how to grow up, the difference between right and wrong. to follow the rules, to see in color, how to stand strong. But still, you are children,...

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there, among those Ruby Spires
          stood I, a-gazing toward the mist
               red...

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      As I fall into the buzzing altar of heavy 
metal shifting sand, maw, swirling sheets, 
illness drools plus plus halcyon?
drawn too many wrinkles...

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anticipatory anxiety fosters catastrophization...,

especially bombardment of online scare tactics
courtesy fiendish insidious loathsome sinister oafs
rubbing their hands at aggrieved party;
punch drunk cyber thieves ecstatic
acquiring by hook and/or crook
sought after precious, priceless, and proverbial data
after loosed ransomware...

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I’m mad as H E Double Hockey Sticks, flummoxed, and  more than a little scared
Kids are being shot in their own back yards, makes me sick to my stomach
Mommas and daddies taken in handcuffs...

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I walked a wooded path at night;
Down in the vale: a hint of light.
It shone as through an open door:
A faint, soft glow, and little more,
And sounds of bells, to my delight.

I crept up close...

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   In the Abaddoned depths of Faith's cosmos, 
a delusion of grandeur 
and of wonder blunders in awe, 
puts its hook securely in blasphemers jaw.
Curiousity opens Hell's salivating maw,...

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across the Doggerland dogged people trudge
  Neanderthals, Heidelbergers...Sapiens, the last ones standing
  hairy mammoths, heavy life bearing down
  the mighty maw of an ice wall crunches, enforcing southward retreat
  remoulding the...

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Fears Chains (Haiku)

First line 5 syllables
Second line 7 syllables
Third line 5 syllables
(7 syllables)

Caught within a snare
The paralyzing peepshow
Seduces you there
(Making itself intimate)
(undressing for your favor)
(Fairydust of lunacy)
Scrolls, parchments, bark, at the moon)
(Self fulfilling prophecy)
(Demons of...

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Privilege
by Michael R. Burch

This poem is dedicated to Harvey Stanbrough, an ex-marine who has written eloquently about the horror and absurdity of war in "Lessons for a Barren Population."

No, I will never know
what you saw...

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Her skin is textured fabric
and a lovely pair of…odd eyes of ink
 black and sheen green.
Cherry cheeks, heavy-handed
 for his amusement.

Lips sewn to silence
just the way he likes her.
Living only through him
though she’s not alive.

Criminals...

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My first enemy was one I should have loved
He claimed that he loved me but I suppose not enough
He carved the gaps in all my memories
And deprived me of what made me
A child at twelve...

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Symphonic sirens serenade me from afar;
distinctive, delectable scents tickle and tantalise:
my senses awash with anticipation
as, finally, I lay eyes on my prey.

Slowly and surreptitiously,
I draw ever closer to my quarry.
Prancing and playing, oblivious to the...

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Cooped within ancient bodies, this inhabitant 
dwells amongst an elder net 
of crabby, crotchety, curmudgeonly claque 
of old folks, only a portion of population I met
which achey, flaky, kooky motley crue 
disgruntlement fed as peevish...

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A beautiful Wintu girl reached puberty. Her sisters were sent to find 
maple bark to make her an apron. 

It so happened that Turtle, the mischievous son of the mighty ‘Sky 
Turtle’ stopped at the...

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I saw no one but felt a gentle nudge, 
As I woke up, she uttered not a word, 
But beckoned, gravity of time to judge, 
To follow her— wordless like a mute bird, 
I got...

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End of summer countdown before school year...

countless decades graduating 
contemptible cum laude
hence same time frame every 
August since...the stone
temple pilot age, this beastie 
boy flashes back to yahoos
whose rawhide (mine) they 
miraculously never whipped!

Uneasy panic...

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God bless little angels brought unto me,
Watch over them beneath heavens grace.
My first of seven blessings most precious gift,
Treasures hearts keepsakes.
Number one the oldest, my rocker baby,
Dancing away with musics sweet lullaby.
The lyrical light of...

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I hold three magic rocks, in my hand. Rolling them over and over and over. Leaving this 
reality behind, far behind I stepped into the magic mirror and there I was back in 1959. ...

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