Long Mulch Poems

Salve
by Michael R. Burch

for the victims and survivors of 9-11

The world is unsalvageable ...
but as we lie here
in bed
stricken to the heart by love
despite war’s
flickering images,

sometimes we still touch,

laughing, amazed,
that our flesh
does not despair
of love
as...

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If you would like to have your limerick(s) posted, soup mail them to me.

Ms. Rude is still writing her snide remarks
She sounds like a mad dog who barks and barks
Geeze, lady, give it a rest
Your...

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In the intimate interlace of chance and fate, in the ultimate interplay of time and place, and with the consummate checkmate of my human dignity, all that is -- is over, in the stormy, swarming...

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"Heart"  

Deep fissures formed
in the cracks of 
the nowhere place
where time leeched
bleeding claret 
through the green 
veined blues

protean bit by bit
the flesh disappears
prematurely 6ft under
mulch for rebirth
the subcontinent
conscientious conscience 
inward reaching

the divine central tableau...

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Continued  From My Day Part1
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Just as I thought of it a little old woman stumbled up beside me and greeted me with a funny dialect
I had to listen hard to understand the content of...

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I
The beggar outside the supermarket
You swore was picked up later
In a flashy car
Sat there in the sun for 8 hours
While you pissed & moaned
All the way home
To your bookless
Mausoleum 
With a chlorinated pool
Where one day...

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It is an unseasonable March day.
My kitchen blinds are drawn against morning sun,
their slender slats like new skin protecting the body's vital organs;
eyelids before this rose-covered tablecloth as though the blooms
are the pale larvae of...

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"Understood"




My feet stand solemn
grounded they're barefoot 
sinking in the undertow,
feeling what’s real

my toes grip the past

while the slow words 
wash it irrevocably away 
the ego sashays
and hangs that Faust in the wardrobe

Locks it away
turns the...

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RIbaldO the Clown
RIbaldO the Clown
he wore a black bandana and no make up yet his eyes were slanted up and 
when he was on the street everyone saw a clown he looked like a clown...

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1. Too fired up
he exaggerates every niggle
and squashes every chance to assuage our boils.
He acts without a lode star
putting everything under weigh
and exhibiting ignorance with flames of literacy.
Reading without play decorates stupidity
I play the cheap...

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Dear Budding Poet:
Modern poetry is a sandbox for all who would build, smash, trash, shake up, and take up the art. Poetry is not writ, nor wrote, or written, but is hummed through the nose,...

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For future reference,
it might be best
if I give up radio listening
when going out
to take a rest
from domestic
and national
and international climate mess.

Arrested gardening yesterday.
We need more mulch
fragrant as a hemlock forest retreat,
we are
and yet become
when in...

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How many?
how many lives;
how many have fallen 
beneath 
your magical spell? 

If it may be so, 
let each star be named 
You.
 
For your beauty transpires 
our words 
into all shine and sheen cast out
from...

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What's up?
What's going on?
How come it's 3AM?
And bright as noon?
Have I finally made it
Into a Looney-Tune?

Who left me a hot breakfast,
Then disappeard?
How the hell did I
Overnight grow a green beard?

And that new Lamborgini
In my driveway
Painted...

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Mortality forces me to confront the inevitable...

Though feeling one among the basket
of deplorables, yours truly, albeit groggy
from unsettling frightful dreams also rather
shy to summon courage amidst adversity took
deep breaths (envisioning egotism inflating
confidence, whereat, I never...

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October: I'm eighteen, shortcutting home
through an autumn-burnished churchyard -
copper-lustred leaves, moss-skinned stone -
a jaunty swing of skater skirt and arm,
college folder square-sturdy in my hand.
In the moment. In the last pale pulse of sun.

Hey, can...

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I watch the calm water ebb and flow 
Like time trickling at my naked, tired feet
I feel the passing of things I know
And my heart is bereft with love's defeat
You felt the tug of the...

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Prescribed blood tests
present no qualms,
unlikely nothing askew i.e.
ticking time bombs
nor prone to catastrophization,

albeit anticipatory anxiety
plus demeanor of poetically titled
medical practitioner allays, calms
alleviates agitation exhibited
by dad's and/or mom's

panic minimizes si? no sweaty palms,
nonetheless precautionary measure taken
thumbing...

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Her eyes begin to sparkle
With joy from within
Pleasure only found from
Sharing the heart with a friend
Elation only known with
The whisper of intimacy baptized
In laughter, smiles, euphoria
Left on the heart who listens 
Silently, to the roar...

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Everyone has a childhood witch.  Mine was Florence.  I would run and hide when she walked past our house, stooped over, staring at the sidewalk.
Her hair was an ugly gray color, held away...

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Celebrity Dreamscapes

Washington
Wall Street
Hollywood
Nashville

Where regurgitation overflows
And Barmecidal bait boxes
Morph their delights by the hour

All the while

Gluttony's promised feast
Ignorant of cyclic famine
Awaits the pernicious fate-agent
Scouting to burrow like a weevil
The new crop of innocence

Trusting destiny to the...

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TO DUE TIME AND SEASON
(APROPOS LESSONS FROM ODYSSEUS)

In deep winter womb of mind
the heart yet glows
with fervent warmth
of hope un-died;
hope un-denied—
in due season to come,
faith firmly fitted for the testing.

Though life’s winding stairway 
seem to...

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Yesterday I took a walk in a nearby forest,                          ...

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The sun is rising at my back;
across the land’s a lemon glow,
to brighten up my backdrop,
where pristine vegetation grow.

I’m sitting down upon my porch,
with coffee cup held in my hand;
a slice of toast with vegemite,
while...

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I cannot see it, yet I believe it as fact:
Death has swallowed me, it’s no victory
but the sting of it impales my soul with grief  

Doubt, we are told
is an instrumental part of faith
we...

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