Long Moorings Poems

Sonnets LII-LX

The Endeavors of Lips
by Michael R. Burch

How sweet the endeavors of lips: to speak
of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak
in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak:
for there is...

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LOVE POEMS V

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch, about life, the dream of love, virtue, a first kiss, a first crush, the birth of a first relationship, the joy of a first love...

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"Midnight to 3.33, Morning Kills"



He said, 
“Go to where the poets go
Love rolls wet and sways
Intensity wraps itself inside out
and somersaults its legs backward
to open a way
Out
It’s kind of burning hot 
like Summer burns 
bare...

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Existentialism emancipation proclamation manumission...

Flourishes amidst freedom 
once invisible (alice in) chains shucked
when soul no longer kept linkedin 
to jane's addiction 
with corporeal duty, entity, fealty... 
while formerly shed body electric 
gendered as former googly eyed...

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"The Well of Tender Moorings"



Deep as the coolest deep dark well
Seeking sanctuary in thy fathomless ocean,
The immaculate buoyant waters of thy untamed soul
I lie between thy corporeal shoulder blades and muscles
Bathed in thy efflorescence, the...

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Thump-thump of stiffening fish contorting
   In the bilge beneath the gunwale; 
 Lidless, bulging, reddened eyes, swivelling upwards, 
Protruding horribly from the straining sockets,
    Express stupefied amazement at inconceivable 
...

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 play at Full Volume





"MOTHER" 

Mother Earth 
is Crying

Her heart is breaking
Earth is shaking violently

She is hurt and 
She is angry

Her tears no longer reign
Oceans swelling dry 

all the creatures 
She spits out 

on Her...

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(Apropos of Black Poetic Griots)

We may not be deemed apostolic recorders
But we poets, guided with divine wisdom, are
The lay scribes thereof in the chronicling of
Our life’s sojourn in the shadowing times
we spend here on this...

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‘Twas but a mist-enshrouded speckle
dark-painted on looming horizon.
Petty worker holds unwavering watch,
silently, stealthily keeps his eyes on.

Forward motion undeniable,
each passing minute size increasing.
Small heart stands alert and viable – 
beating fast and tremulous; though, never...

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If the voice in Heaven did speak
His would be the last true voice
To speak and command me to be well
I was born with a broken heart
That formed an invisible shackle
Not fixed by the servant of...

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You look sideways at me
I look straight on at you
You glance towards me
I stare at you
memorize the stiches of your coat
they are uneven
 it must have been handmade
You look up at the sky
I look at...

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VII
There never was an army quite like Xerxes’.
Hyrcanians, Medes, Egyptians, Syrians, Scyths –
soon, Greece would grovel at its tender mercies –
a fate more gruesome than the grimmest myths.
It drank whole rivers dry.  Took three...

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The earth was void and without form…
And the voice of the Lord was upon the waters…

	In the roll of a tsunami wave across the Pacific
	Born of a collapsing mountain deep in the sea
	And in the...

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At dawn the bay bed glows peachy yellow.
The waters above blue-green and gleaming. 
Further out a grey shroud of ripples entraps the yachts
with lace nets en-snaring a flock of hulls.
Yet farther out still, the sea...

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I love to go sailing
when the moon rides high,
under a canopy of stars,
that lightens the sky.
Making no firm plans
as to where I will go
I cast off from the pier,
then to dreamland I go!

It’s only a...

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2,

Bourne loosely through the chill gusts,
Disordered fragments of summer's life go hurried by,
Harried to their last resting places
Into piles of brittle, browning drifts
Scattered on the stiffening ground.
A cold sun, coursing ever more briefly
Across these hard,...

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Once I had harbored complexes many.
I thought I wasn’t beautiful or wise.
With my spluttering tone and broken speech,
I feared, my words fell flat,
Never leaving an impact or impression

Now when I have learnt to accept myself...

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LOST dreams slide insensibly toward madness of dreams -- you close your eyes shut your wooden windows to life ~~ your dilated eyes drowning in a violent ocean.

Mister, you forgot your hat but now days...

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When death, like silence 
Creeps into or sleepy lives

We feel the moorings untie 
The threads that tangle our lives

We feel the currents of emotion upend our hearts
Images of both good and bad rage like storms...

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PART I.

I.
each night...
I think about the moment when we'll vanish 
on the doormat of an empty house
because I know some day they will come - 
the malignant conquistadors and their moon colored hounds
when this century...

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The clocks have stopped
Stuttering into mournful silence the second
You stopped talking to me
As if you held time’s brittle thread in your hands
And, like one of the cold-eyed Fates,
Snipped it with a rusted pair of shears
Nonchalant...

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Getting Everybody on Board,
Is not always possible,
When boats need to cast off their moorings,
Planes need to clear the runway,
Trains need to stay on track,
Busses need to please more than one passenger,
And cars need to avoid...

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It all begins in the darkest part of our empty souls.
When we realize we won't or can't possibly reach our goal.

We gnash out bloodied teeth, crying to a crimson sky, 
Lashing out..... "Why, why, why?"

So we bring out our...

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McGee’s Tall Tale

I first saw McGee with his back facing me
sitting in the Pub with a pint
When Finn, asked him "Tell us a Tale"
So, he stood up and said "I just might"

His face looked grim,...

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Though I am a drop in the ocean you sail on,
one love is what floats (lifts all ships) on earth’s oceans.
Such truth can’t be fathomed, much less seen or nurtured!
Let ‘Love’ be rejoiced in; love’s...

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