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...

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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...

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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...

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In the twilight of life, when the sun weeps its rays on the reddened sky of memories,
I feel how autumn weaves its golden and rusty web over the garden of my weary soul,
Each falling leaf...

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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...

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THE ur POEMS


& GAUD said, “Let there be LIGHT VERSE
to illuminate the ‘nature’ of my Curse!”
—michael r. burch


grave request
by michael r. burch

come to ur doom
in Tombstone;

the stars stark and chill
over Boot Hill

care nothing for ur...

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FROM THE ur POEMS



u-turn: another way to look at religion
by Michael R. Burch 
 
... u were borne orphaned from Ecstasy
into this lower realm: just one of the inching worms
dreaming of Beatification; u
would love to...

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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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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...

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(Piece is intended to be the most complex vocabulary gothic ever)

Grandiloquence,
mellifluous pulchritudinous,
gaiety of quintessential moistening serendipity,
bile deluge if you show the sanguinary breath,
crimson waterfall sizzling on lava rock hellscape.

Yclept necrophelia maestra,
macabre tableau,
dips douse abyssal incarnate,
now...

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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)...

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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...

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"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...

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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...

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Hey mommy I am here to play
Daddy and brother are on the way 
To the underworld where I sent them
By gutting tummies and dissecting 
Innards go to outwards on the floor
Faces you can’t recognize anymore
Low...

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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...

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In the tenebrous, xenial realm of the lake, where human cadavers oscillate, suspended by verdigris chains, a lamia of unholy provenance, orchestrates a gambits cavalcade.

Each mortal she ensnares, a lugubrious, ghoulish spectacle unfolds, as if...

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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,...

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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...

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

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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...

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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;...

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I saw them spinning in the field
and felt a wonder at their dance.
Astonished by their silent shield
I paused, as in a trance.

I watched and then began to move
with each note of leap and song.
As I...

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Just untangle and snip the threads and you will be fine. In the luminous labyrinth of society, a kaleidoscope of perspectives unfolds, where idiosyncratic souls shatter certainties, embracing the abyssal void. We, the insular inhabitants,...

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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...

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