Long Mere Poems

“I am NOT like my father!!!
You say that again, I’m going to kill you!”

I shrivel up in shame
For, I am not to blame
For the shenanigans you put me through so many times
Sometimes, I wish I...

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Yours truly would never be confused for a gourmand, nevertheless I could enjoy experiencing taste testing select food samples if offered an opportunity of attending a fancy feast viz smörgåsbord, whereby oral indulgence would arouse,...

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When it struck 11, I sighed in relief
When it struck 11, I haven't felt grief
The time kept ticking on and it wasn't brief
And I'm so… patiently shaking like a leaf
Vigorously feeling vital everyday...
Every minute...every second...come...

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Agony be to society's demise
Labels are for fools, not for the wise
Play the familiar tune of in-unison serenity 
Fatality won't come any time soon, thankfully...

Homeless people were on the news not to long ago...I weep...

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“Son”...”say goodnight to grandpa”

Spurred by mother dearest 
as well as other politesse
drummed into her second born
fobbing blandishments as incentive
tumbled off fingers of prodigal son
tripped wordsmith to splutter forth
forthwith the following lines.

Back in the day 
quaint...

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"Who Put Luebella down the Wych Elm?"

There are rumours
about me, some 
come seeking me
with their geiger counters
and ouji boards
with their heart 
shaped planchettes

unanswered questions
in the woods, crackling
within the sounds of leaves
invisible dead things speaking 
underfoot...

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Driven insane by sorrow, there’s no tomorrow to cure it…
Honestly, I’m in vain and so guilty…feeling way less than legit…
I’m holding you close in my optimism and its memories along with it
Torn apart by negative...

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"Blue Sky, Why?"

stories speak to us.
inside our heart 
is crying.

Blue Sky, Why?

why do children
holding sunflowers
watch their parents die

why do sweet children,
now war torn, 
some the battle's orphans,
daily lose their lives

lying in their sick beds
bombed in...

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Sappho fragment #155
translation by Michael R. Burch 

A short revealing frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!

*

Sappho fragment #156
translation by Michael R. Burch 

She keeps her scents
in a dressing-case.
And her sense?
In some undiscoverable...

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Food glorious food

Asia generic guy gastronomy (and how gourmet foods eat destructively clearly beyond any) excess enthusiasm, the necessity to feed and clothe this lean mean exercising machine gunning corporeal essence christened Matthew Scott Harris...

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"The Payload" 

The payload 
came crashing down
like rain expelled
from the fat belly 
of a ruinous pregnant cloud 
bilious with buxom promise

it came crashing down 
like school fish released 
from the tight confines
of a course rope...

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The emotional, mental and spiritual fallout courtesy Colt Gray

Apalachee High School,
located in Winder, Georgia
witnessed an active shooter,
whereby the alleged lone gunman
(actually just a teenager of fourteen years)
killed four people and injured nine more
the latter hospitalized with...

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Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally...

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What fills your goals, son?

I told you!
Need to get my car rolling [life rolling, love rolling]
yesterday,
if not today...

If I may interrupt
to process mindful resilience
for a bit...

Let me ask again:
Noticing you are concerned about long-winded
and -winding
and...

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“Éagmais croí a dhíscaoileadh ar gach eagla.
Faoi dhíon taobh istigh de na blianta seo.
Fanacht i bhfianaise, a dhíscaoileadh ar gach eagla.
Ós rud é go ndearnadh tú a chaitheamh.
Briseadh an tost seo”



"An Bee Cailleach"


She lives to...

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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...

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Too many times sadly
too seldom gladly
I must learn to trust
Earth's future more

Both Father Sun's timeless 
rounds of enlightenment
and Mother Earth's
codependent rhythms
regenerating rich 
empowering 
soulful soil
and surfing seas

And this trusting more
impels healing trauma's lessons,
surviving hale and...

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the Horror
by Michael R. Burch

the Horror lurks inside our closets
the Horror hides beneath our beds
the Horror hisses ancient curses
the Horror whispers in our heads

the Horror tells us Death is coming
the Horror tells us there’s no...

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Some days and nights
I am terrorized by death,
cold silo ache-echoing fear,
claustrophobic breathless dark
barking inevitable factness and finality
of my decomposing mortality,
of history's posthumous demise,
post-humorous as hell.

What good is death
if it cannot at least invite eternal engagement?
Hopeful...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch

In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
while...

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I have a hardbound copy of
"The City of Hartford 1784-1984"
although most of this coffee table story
of unfortunate events
takes place between 1850 and 1950s,
before and after the UnCivil War,
and,
like the U.S. Catholic Church
and many MainLine Protestant...

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I listened to his heart profusely, 
For a beat like his was much to ponder
I often wondered, his thoughts, and,
A light in me knew, with wretched wonderment
What the whispers in his mutterings meant to me

They...

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There is nothing weaker than water
But none is superior to it in overcoming the hard,
For which there is no substitute.
(Laotse, "Nothing Weaker Than Water", Lin Yutang, trans.)

That weakness of mind and body overcomes strength
And uniting...

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Medieval Poems



Deor's Lament (Anglo Saxon poem, circa 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland knew the agony of exile.
That indomitable smith was wracked by grief.
He endured countless troubles:
sorrows were his only companions
in his frozen...

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"Salvage"


Salvage the fixating salvation 
unfurling from the wreckage
of a numb world twisted inside
treasure climbs swimming 
the ladder from the deep of all things 
reaching upwards travelling in a new time
of melting morpheme moments overlapping 
dissolved...

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