Long Mori Poems

Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a lozenge of sugar.

When I held you in...

Read More

THREE WAYS of Swiping the World Cup

"It is sweet and fitting/glorious to lay your life down for your country » - from a poem by HORACE

(See my story selected to represent France in the 2006...

Read More

My 1st round:

I know we just met and you seem like you're cool but there's a whole bunch of s**t that I don't know about you. Now I don't care about your race, what kind...

Read More

Thru a paroxysm of tears...

I inconsolably wept a river of sorrow
starkly aware alienated daughter(s)
implacable woe sundered fatherhood
yesterday, today and tomorrow.

A series of unfortunate events
(move over Lemony Snicket)
set in motion since my birth
unleashed impotent scrawny infant
registering...

Read More

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...

Read More

Fifty years of bustin’ ass, I never had a dime,
If I had any balls at all, I’d’ve chose a life of crime;

I never owned a brand new truck, a flat TV or yacht,
I figured I...

Read More

Far as the (ease) 
severely myopic eyes can see,
nothing but polluted atmosphere
where skull and crossbones
memento mori betokens beware,

especially with increasing chronology
mortality becomes crystal clear
existential crisis yours truly didst despair
not so much death itself, but failure
(inadequacy)...

Read More

The Great Lie

Dulce et Decorum est pro Patria mori
I believed that once
I laughed and chatted to my friend
As we boarded the troopship
To take us to the far side of the world

Never been abroad before
We were...

Read More

"See: A Marriage Worthy, Letters Offered to an Aching Bride"



See 
The blood of man
drips from his fingers

note the true 
Son of Man
No loud crimson 

cardinal feathers
gently caressing
psalming minds

No White Hat 
nor flag in hand, yet...

Read More

Part 1
“Stand up.”
I heard that voice.
I knew it from somewhere.
Born to be a leader,
Breed to be a killer.
“Stand up!”
A command is easily ignored,
But not an order.
I catch the stick when he tosses it to me.
I...

Read More

AWELEWA
(Beauty Lord)

Mojirola Amoke Orekelewa Omidan
Her beauty struck every creature
Like the camellic evergreen Flowering shrub.

Aponbepore Arewa Oleyinju Ege
Her allure utter chamomile of
Peace and pure love
Who then can deny not seeing her
When she majestically pass by?
Ajanaku koja...

Read More

The skeletons in my closet are trying on my clothes
Posing a fashion show of history 
Using bony toes to throw memento mori

"watch your head!"-puts hand over grin

My diary redacted, an exploding think tank
Plastered on pages,...

Read More

Face the west. 
Face the stone and turn your back on your chains.

A wraith you arrived, but now life overflows with every ragged breath.

Let your heart brim with resolve, your eyes with the mountain and...

Read More

When I look at the flashing lighthouse
      on an ocean between the shores of the soul
      Mournful and exhausted, but no tears
   ...

Read More

IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE : Part XXXIV

       For Mickey COTO and his PTS-ed cohorts

IF you pull a long patriotic face
" My Country My God boundup in one...

Read More

Prompt: Sundial


Stone keeper
of time so frail,
Gazes over gardens,
Poisoned
by pretentious people
Longing to lengthen living.
Time trickling away,
The truth shall stay.


Superior shrine of ages
Shines,
Preserved
past periods
when legends had long	lost life.
Casting contorted shadows from its path,
The renewed sun shall laugh;...

Read More

What good would it do,
Son of Peleus,
To pull that arrow from your heel?
As you lie there helpless, 
Legs useless and folded beneath you.
Your hand clenched around its fletchings 
Searching for the source 
Of sensations unfamiliar...

Read More

back and forth,
running with a string
i dance, back and forth
flowing like a ribbon
the wings of a butterfly,
flapping endlessly
the songs that i sing
mimmick the life 
beneath my skin
reveal the truth that's missing
try, to see my eyes
move,...

Read More

EVOCATIONS a still life ekphrasis


time standing
stlll
arrested
   moments
revealed
in
stimulations
of
the mind

revealed
illuminations
of
 the
past
yesterdays
becoming
today
tomorrow's
postponed
memory

past pictures
live
again


momento
mori
in hypereality
as
monuments
 to past
 existence
from
shadows
of
transience

sentient
touchstones
in
memorials
of perception

   aesthetic
 sublimations
of
 immersive
spontaneity
with
fascinating
  expectations

a visual
of genesis
in
 suspended
animation
 still distant
now
  living
again


NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE   using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds...

Read More

Buttercup as an anemone, I see my bonbon 
In the midst of a wharve spin,
Graciously thin languette,
Ecclesiastic, a true coquette,   
Offered for a handful of sequin
On the 1000-thread linen, rests Evangeline!

Shine the uptown...

Read More

Momento Mori 
Remember you must die

We must walk thru the valley of the skulls
You can get there by using the proper tools
Everlasting life is for the fools

Old age can't be defied 
The grim reaper can't...

Read More

(In the Middle Ages, tombs and monuments
often bore carvings of skulls or decaying corpses.
The idea was to remind the onlooker that he, too,
was marked for death.  These figures were known
as "memento mori".)

Approach me, stranger....

Read More

MEMENTO MORI

      "Remember you're going to die", Latin phrase
        that reminds us that death is certainty...
       ...

Read More

SUBLIMITY
eerie
   empty
&the bizarre
sublime
resemblance
 now apparent

the
idiosyncratic
& experimental
& intense
expressiveness
anticipating
the hidden
poetic
 possible
dwarfed
in the
 abyss

a place
of  mystery
swallowed
by an
oblivious
 translates
the pleasures
of the joyous
 surrounding
the sublime
so full
of
meaning

a
memento mori
of
stilled
life
a missing
 link
hints at
 reality
 layered

 in
our
  yesterdays

NOTE:THIS IS AN OPEN(organic) FORM VERSE   using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols ,the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' & so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and responds thus making...

Read More

I don’t want to write a poem,
there’s nothing in the tank,
no great thought or inspiration
that will inspire thanks.

I don’t want to write a poem,
just let me watch youtube,
and leave the entertaining to
far more qualified dudes.

I...

Read More