Long Mid(a) Poems

Lady’s Favor
by Michael R. Burch

May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leave us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but her thorn.


The...

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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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LOVE POEMS III by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch about passion, desire, lust, sex, dating, relationships, devotion and marriage. 


Violets
by Michael R. Burch

Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to...

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Dusk-gliding swallow, 
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers! 
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A bee emerging
from deep within the peony's hairy recesses
flies off, sated
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

That dying cricket,...

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These are translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into tanka, renga and haiku. 

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
—O no Yasumaro (circa 711), translation...

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Nemesis, Confrontation And The Rejoined Battle,
Now Completed


(Nemesis) - Part One

O'lord of blight dare thee to now abide
Leaving thy abode to earthen realm ride
As punisher with dark universal might
As grief bearer, humanity to smite!

Dar'est thee enter,...

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Beckoning
by Michael R. Burch 
 
Yesterday the wind whispered my name
while the blazing locks
of her rampant mane
lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday
I saw the way
the wind caressed tall pines
in forests laced by glinting streams
and thick with...

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Alone I arrive, walking from Frederick
over the gaps, across gentle hills
out onto a knoll
overlooking this burnished landscape.
Before me I see countless writhing rows
of indiscernible shapes gathered
in terrible rituals mid fire and smoke
darkening the sun.
From distant...

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The pencil now resting the image was 'testing' for the creature before him, (his badly-drawn drawin') had come out 'not right' somewhat twisted and tight.

The picture in question, it burst with suggestion, for lines that...

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Wounded Sacred Dementia

My last foster care-provider
and -receiver story
is also a sad story
of my last special needs adoption
of bipolar born,
and oppositionally reared,
alcoholism.

My BiPolar Wounded Child
turned an auspicious five
on the day I first saw her,
and promptly rejected...

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Merov’s Ghost (1) and Other Shots Across My Bow!

In mid-November of Fourteen, I published my first web verse here, (2)
the earliest spanned sixty years, composed for Senior English class
one night in Nineteen Sixty-One. Assigned just...

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Joe: "It's 9 a.m., here in Gotham and my partner, Mike and I, have been here since 7 a.m., and we also passed a cow coming over here!"
Mike: "That was no cow sir just a...

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Do you remember?
We lay in the moonlight, exhausted and content,
Moments from perfection, skin glistening with moisture,
Salty and sweet from love - love so amazing
That it stunned us every time ...
Always better than before, and always...

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I shall resolve to leave this
Place now...
And steadfastly search out,
Nestling between ridge and bluff
Amidst the folds of a foreign 
Land,
Several acres of unkempt ground
Fallow and rough;
Upon which stands...
Crumbled stone walls
With an exposed slate roof in
Some...

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Still wrestling with impasse to contentment

Dispense sing with fidelity blithely agog
just me and mine dark shadow 
slinking along outer limits of 
the edge of night doth blog
passivity, the path 
of least resistance ohm my dog,
shocking...

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Lumi smiled and reached out to grab his shoulder.  They passed over the ridge where, as Joulupukki had said, a small hamlet clung to the side of the mountain about equal distance to the...

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Happy Fourth Of July, Or Happy Independence Day

On this day we celebrate and commemorate the birth of our nation, The United States of America's Independence from Great Britain's monarchical hold and liberty's triumph
Congress voting in...

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The sun was rising high in the east over the town of Milton creek
It was the eighteenth day of December, the start of Christmas week
All the store fronts were decorated; it was a colourful sight...

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(continued from A Year Of Months (January-June)
https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/heroic_crown_of_sonnets_-_part_one_772928


A Year Of Months (July-December)

8. July

July now follows summer's song of June;
with sun ablaze, her days are humid, warm.
Great time to languish in the afternoon,
and later, watch an evening...

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The Philistine troops gathered up for war,
Between Azekah and Socoh amassed.
Israel encamped near in Elah vale
And drew a line against the number vast.
There Saul, upon one mountain, made a stand,
To face the other tribe across...

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The Ash Can  ©

I got the call on Sunday night.  I was traveling on business.  When I looked at the caller ID
 I wondered why my husband’s boss would be calling me....

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Moby Dick, a novel by Herman Melville, published in London in October 1851 as The Whale and a month later in New York City as Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. It is dedicated to Nathaniel Hawthorne....

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Good boy gone bad enters the stage with a spotlight overhead, despite being misunderstood in my ghetto neighborhood

The lonely applause celebrates in my cracked, corrupted, and crazed cranium
I exaggerate too much and so too much,...

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MY Collaboration with Ricky Nelson in the Last Days of 1980

The eventful news of that day about what was found on board that crashed plane, won't replace that particular memory of Mr. Rick Nelson's hearty...

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Yes, love is no more or less reliable the more you check on this. Just like the frigid days of winter make their way for the pleasures that lay in awe of Spring I'm finding....

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