Long Memento mori Poems

Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a lozenge of sugar.

When I held you in...

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In the twilight of life, when the sun weeps its rays on the reddened sky of memories,
I feel how autumn weaves its golden and rusty web over the garden of my weary soul,
Each falling leaf...

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Thru a paroxysm of tears...

I inconsolably wept a river of sorrow
starkly aware alienated daughter(s)
implacable woe sundered fatherhood
yesterday, today and tomorrow.

A series of unfortunate events
(move over Lemony Snicket)
set in motion since my birth
unleashed impotent scrawny infant
registering...

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THE ur POEMS


& GAUD said, “Let there be LIGHT VERSE
to illuminate the ‘nature’ of my Curse!”
—michael r. burch


grave request
by michael r. burch

come to ur doom
in Tombstone;

the stars stark and chill
over Boot Hill

care nothing for ur...

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FROM THE ur POEMS



u-turn: another way to look at religion
by Michael R. Burch 
 
... u were borne orphaned from Ecstasy
into this lower realm: just one of the inching worms
dreaming of Beatification; u
would love to...

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FREE VERSE VI

Reason Without Rhyme
by Michael R. Burch

I used to be averse
to free verse,
but now I admit
YOUR rhyming is WORSE!

But alas, in the end,
it’s all the same:
all verse is unpaid
and a crying shame.



What the Poet...

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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...

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(Piece is intended to be the most complex vocabulary gothic ever)

Grandiloquence,
mellifluous pulchritudinous,
gaiety of quintessential moistening serendipity,
bile deluge if you show the sanguinary breath,
crimson waterfall sizzling on lava rock hellscape.

Yclept necrophelia maestra,
macabre tableau,
dips douse abyssal incarnate,
now...

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Far as the (ease) 
severely myopic eyes can see,
nothing but polluted atmosphere
where skull and crossbones
memento mori betokens beware,

especially with increasing chronology
mortality becomes crystal clear
existential crisis yours truly didst despair
not so much death itself, but failure
(inadequacy)...

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Hey mommy I am here to play
Daddy and brother are on the way 
To the underworld where I sent them
By gutting tummies and dissecting 
Innards go to outwards on the floor
Faces you can’t recognize anymore
Low...

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In the tenebrous, xenial realm of the lake, where human cadavers oscillate, suspended by verdigris chains, a lamia of unholy provenance, orchestrates a gambits cavalcade.

Each mortal she ensnares, a lugubrious, ghoulish spectacle unfolds, as if...

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The skeletons in my closet are trying on my clothes
Posing a fashion show of history 
Using bony toes to throw memento mori

"watch your head!"-puts hand over grin

My diary redacted, an exploding think tank
Plastered on pages,...

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Face the west. 
Face the stone and turn your back on your chains.

A wraith you arrived, but now life overflows with every ragged breath.

Let your heart brim with resolve, your eyes with the mountain and...

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When I look at the flashing lighthouse
      on an ocean between the shores of the soul
      Mournful and exhausted, but no tears
   ...

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Prompt: Sundial


Stone keeper
of time so frail,
Gazes over gardens,
Poisoned
by pretentious people
Longing to lengthen living.
Time trickling away,
The truth shall stay.


Superior shrine of ages
Shines,
Preserved
past periods
when legends had long	lost life.
Casting contorted shadows from its path,
The renewed sun shall laugh;...

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I saw them spinning in the field
and felt a wonder at their dance.
Astonished by their silent shield
I paused, as in a trance.

I watched and then began to move
with each note of leap and song.
As I...

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Just untangle and snip the threads and you will be fine. In the luminous labyrinth of society, a kaleidoscope of perspectives unfolds, where idiosyncratic souls shatter certainties, embracing the abyssal void. We, the insular inhabitants,...

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What good would it do,
Son of Peleus,
To pull that arrow from your heel?
As you lie there helpless, 
Legs useless and folded beneath you.
Your hand clenched around its fletchings 
Searching for the source 
Of sensations unfamiliar...

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back and forth,
running with a string
i dance, back and forth
flowing like a ribbon
the wings of a butterfly,
flapping endlessly
the songs that i sing
mimmick the life 
beneath my skin
reveal the truth that's missing
try, to see my eyes
move,...

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Buttercup as an anemone, I see my bonbon 
In the midst of a wharve spin,
Graciously thin languette,
Ecclesiastic, a true coquette,   
Offered for a handful of sequin
On the 1000-thread linen, rests Evangeline!

Shine the uptown...

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(In the Middle Ages, tombs and monuments
often bore carvings of skulls or decaying corpses.
The idea was to remind the onlooker that he, too,
was marked for death.  These figures were known
as "memento mori".)

Approach me, stranger....

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MEMENTO MORI

      "Remember you're going to die", Latin phrase
        that reminds us that death is certainty...
       ...

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The abyss swallowed you
Into the ocean of despondency,  
Right above death's holler,  
And you couldn't quitclaim.  
No skepticism, no demurrer—  
You took fate lightly.  

Memento Mori, your guts finally cried...

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SUBLIMITY
eerie
   empty
&the bizarre
sublime
resemblance
 now apparent

the
idiosyncratic
& experimental
& intense
expressiveness
anticipating
the hidden
poetic
 possible
dwarfed
in the
 abyss

a place
of  mystery
swallowed
by an
oblivious
 translates
the pleasures
of the joyous
 surrounding
the sublime
so full
of
meaning

a
memento mori
of
stilled
life
a missing
 link
hints at
 reality
 layered

 in
our
  yesterdays

NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE   using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making...

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I've cried enough tears till my eyes could weep no more.
Pain, a mere consequence of love—
felt sometimes when it's here, other times when it's gone.
Given at times, taken at others.

To heal, we must learn to...

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