Long Memphis Poems

Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers III




Success
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

We need our children to keep us humble
between toast and marmalade;

there is no time for a ticker-tape parade
before bed, no award, no bright statuette

to be delivered...

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Poems about Children IV

Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the...

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In these United States of America, there is a little town not very far off the beaten path. Neither gold nor silver has ever been mined in or near this town of fertile delta soil....

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Billboard named him the year finest blues musician. 
Joe Bonamassa is a blues-rock musician,
He was designed to be a famous musician.
His family owns a guitar store in upstate New York,
After years of practice, Bonamassa will...

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My roommates Leong, Sophie, (Charles) and I were coming from a Yale sporting event. The sky looked like a dirty Swiffer-mop and the wind seemed to be ignoring the posted 20mph speed limit. It was...

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SEVEN years after 911,                               ...

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Elvis Aaron Presley, Elvis, came from poor beginnings
born in Tupelo, Mississippi to Vernon and Gladys
this boy loved the gospel music in church . . . . 
at thirteen his family moved to Memphis, Tennessee 
when...

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“Physics asserts that there are four fundamental forces: electro-magnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. These gentlemen have made a compelling argument for the existence of a fifth, desire.” Dr. Howard Pollison, National...

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Prisoners of their own success

Their world now micro-sized

Fan adulation to excess

Their love is just disguised

Their objects of affection

Live their lives inside a bubble

Leaving their prison, though it's self imposed

Could bring them worlds of trouble

A truck...

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I recall the day she journeyed to the delta from her village above the first cataphract with a New Kingdom attitude and an Old Kingdom strut, inspiring rumors to be passed from shadoof to shadoof...

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My Lords an adjournment is 
Called for...
All my retire;
But holding foremost in your
Thoughts,
I beseech ye,
Thee impudent countenance of
This most ardent denier.
Therefore heed me,
I caution all ye present,
Thou shall not disband;
Moreover, to reassemble at any
Sudden instance...

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6. Softly she sits upon my knee.
I doze and drift as the radio squeaks
Of sunspots and the honeybee.
The cab wind whistles and creeks.
I sense monstrous, hidden beings
Attempting to open forbidden portals
To hideous, evil, inhuman fiends,
Elder...

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Being sick with a snotty nose
A cough, fatigue, one of those colds???
For goodness sake's everyone knows
Grandmothers are too sophicated 
To wear anything but fancy clothes
Surely not a Kleenex box attached
To their chair, and looking unkempt
And...

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Marvellous things did He in the sight
of their fathers, in the land of Egypt,
in the field of Zoan ...
How He had wrought His signs in
Egypt, and His wonders 
in the field of Zoan ...
For, lo,...

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A quarter, a dime, a nickel or the lowly penny once dropped from a careless hand was never safe from the prying eyes of the Miser. The wig-tips shoes in “Old Man “ style with...

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Cross all your Salem's in foreshadowed Shalom,
do the math and burn, 
brightly back at Cairo, Memphis, Jericho-less nonetheless turn,
and those of paths now undaunted, not undone to aftermath of storm.
In the land of the free,...

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Was it her or was it him?
Was it the mixed signals of dixie,                      ...

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It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of tearing down Confederate statues, spitting on the legacy of Christopher Columbus, and even declaring the national anthem a poem of oppression would have been regarded as...

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They told me, stay away from you, because you had a past,
They told you that I’d be no good, my future would not last,
But your past is all lies,
And no one realized,
That I could get...

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A Visit to Graceland

By Elton Camp

Although Memphis is nearby
To visit Graceland I didn’t try.
Elvis wasn’t much older than me.
So his home I really should go see.

I followed the young tour guide.
“Stay together as we move...

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For many years I have realized that our hearts are very deceptive and unreliable.  I cannot imagine how many times my heart has let me down and exposed the dark and negative aspects of...

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"HIGH TECH LYNCHING"

April 6, 2023, a dark and sad day in Tennessee history
Black men striped of their first amendment right to tell their story
The Declaration of Independence, states that "all men are created equal"
But the...

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Chasin’ Lighting – In Honor of the CUA Crew!
Several rickety rides held together with the faith of the ages,
Sages some might say, turnin’ pages of things old and things new, 
The chosen few, riding with...

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While looking for Elvis
Met Nessie in Loch Ness
Hoarding a leprechauns pot of gold

While getting ready to depart
I tripped over the Lost Ark
In the baggage of a hitchhiking Pharaoh

Thought I had got lost in flight
Stumble into...

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Walking Away

There was a good job offer in Chicago, but I was forced to say no, because it interfered with my goals. There was a position rejection at my place of employment, and I decided...

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