Long Mildewed Poems

Juvenilia: Early Poems VII

These are early poems I wrote as a boy and as a teenager.

The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men...

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THIS WORLD OF DEW

This world? 
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane's bill.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seventy-one?
How long
can a dewdrop last? 
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dewdrops beading grass-blades
die before...

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Ghostly spirits from deadly arsenal spell haunting annihilation

With mighty mouse and Hercules height 
tried to retrieve sanity spread loose;
a faded unpleasant memory - even enlisting
decades old cartoon characters: 
Natasha squirrel and Bullwinkle moose
flow of electrons...

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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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POEMS ABOUT POOL SHARKS

Shark
by Michael R. Burch

They are all unknowable,
these rough pale men—
haunting dim pool rooms like shadows,
propped up on bar stools like scarecrows,
nodding and sagging in the fraying light...

I am not of them,
as I...

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POEMS ABOUT POOL SHARKS

Fair Game
by Michael R. Burch

At the Tennessee State Fair,
the largest stuffed animals hang tilt-a-whirl over the pool tables
with mocking button eyes,
knowing the playing field is unlevel,
that the rails slant, ever so slightly,...

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Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.
Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there’s just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything’s permitted.

Originally published...

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   An anti-resolvent-fume-
of-infest-chokes-out-integral-yield of humanity. 
Thick as molasses, blackstrap morass of emnity.

Blight is apathy, and apathy is blight. 
A Void, a claim farming the abyss. 
Marketing it's lie, on sale. 
Though it has...

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The scent of your soul

A caramelised breeze of fruit odours

reverberating  softly through my memory

Throwing me right back in ninth grade

where we sat side by side

Your right arm reaching slightly for my back.

Thoughts of you...

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The scent of your soul

a caramalized breeze of fruit odours

reverbrating softly through my memory

Throwing me right back in ninth grade 

where we sat side by side

Your right arm reaching slightly for my back

Your  name...

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The scent of your soul
a caramelized breeze of fruit odours
reverberating softly through my memory
Throwing me right back into ninth grade
where we sat side by side
Your right arm reaching slightly for my back
Your name resonates gently...

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A back flipping coconut is very very amusing at a ball but ball pits are moving around so one must surely wear wellingtons or a pair of anglers' waders when jumping across such multicoloured curves....

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Only A Poet Would Understand
Only A Writer Will Know…
Why I Would Feel This Disheartened and
Why I Can’t Shake Writer’s Woe… 

… I Lost 200 Poems or More
Tho’ The Exact Count Doesn’t Matter
Most of What I’d...

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POINTS OF  VIEW

Took kids for fresh air to zoo and laughed  -  are we or they behind bars?
Monkeys studying a parade of human specimens for their amusement:
Point of view was a novelty...

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The sun has long receded from the sky,
Pallid gloom invades the wintry air,
Morbid silence hangs over him,
Memory sleeps like hibernating toads. 

Trees stand bare with no leaves to array,
The Earth lies shielded in its icy...

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When I read
that we are all sculpted
upon his image
the first imprint appeared in front of my cognition
is that one of the parts sliding down the conveyor belt
just like at Fiat's

little pieces dropping in paper boxes
warily...

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Untold  brutal tales of wives battered. 
World all over, violated wedding vows, 
in merciless kicks, her screams drowse. 
Black-eyed Cindrella, dreams all shattered. 

Injured love hurts... in horrific nightmare. 
Red petals pumelled in dark...

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SNOW DANCER

I am amazed at switch the goods
Before so apostolic
And now so different
To one’s mind.
Are you, my milk tooth
A passion-flower nun
Or an old maid
Married with god
With might & main?
Are you making use of decoy
“Snow Dancer”
As...

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A WANING SUN HAD SET THE SCENE
 
0N A DYING GRAVEYARD ALL SERENE 

BUT MOULD AND DECAY HAD HAD ITS WAY

IT LIVED AND THRIVED WHEN ALL  HAD DIED

LIFES A LIFELONG VIRTUAL DREAM 

ON A...

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she was a salamander of the sun
an enraptured reptile of the stars
dancing with the other campfire lizards
in the asphalt murrain
in the technomarshes
in the hookah parking lots
and mildewed shopping malls
on the internet
amongst the programmer punks
and hacker...

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Wind-gathered winter leaves hide the worn 
Inscription; the birth, the death the epitaph 
On show for all who take this path 
To know Sir John is buried here 
Beneath his coat of arms.

This baronet, the...

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She pulls the past together,
gathering weeds, twisting kelp,
squeezing minnows of memory
through shrinking nets.
 
My ex-wife phones
from a former home,
a village by the sea
now sinking
on a shelving shore.

"Brian the pub-crawler
took another tumble
he now gets rat-arsed on...

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A waning aura no longer flamed enough to flicker a surrender. Decomposes, decompresses like mummification wrap.

An anti-resolvent-fume-
of-infest-chokes-out-integral-yield. 
Thick as molasses, blackstrap.

Blight is apathy, and apathy is blight. 
A Void, a claim farming the abyss. 
Marketing...

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She pulls the past together, gathering weeds,
squeezing minnows of memory through shrinking nets.

My ex-wife phones from a former home,
a village by the sea now sinking
on a shelving shore.

‘Brian the pub-crawler took another tumble
he now gets...

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Viola Fuller

1879 – 1909

For it is written in solemn Chinese ideography,
That two women under one roof spells trouble.
For indeed my life found trouble
And death quite early due to influenza.
I spent my leisure hours in China...

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