Long Narrowing Poems

Epigrams by Michael R. Burch

If brevity is the soul of wit
then brevity and levity 
are the whole of it.
—Michael R. Burch

To write an epigram, cram.
If you lack wit, scram!
—Michael R. Burch

Conformists of a feather
flock together.
—Michael...

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[ ... story with context, a plausible universe with top and bottom
  a coat of cosmos covering
  over a subterranean protoverse of potential fields
  a quantum cellar creating
  the very big...

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These are poems about starlight and moonlight, moons and stars, dreams and visions, illuminations and intimations …



Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch 

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?

And will she find...

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The next event to be held for Joulupukki was the coronation, which followed closely behind his parent's burial.  He was very wary of what he would say at this event. Virtually every elf on...

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In his essay "Let's Be Reasonable" 
Rev. Todd Eklof [The Gadfly Papers]
reduces reasonable to logical;

This is a common left-brain dominant error,
confusion between deductive premises
and coldly reductive conclusions
calculated assuming cause v effect linear formulas
more than feedback...

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competing cousins, interbreeding homo-sapiens
  hominins humming mostly human song
  altruistic generalisers, ever close to dying ways
  opportunistic, never staying long

  self-aware, inquisitive, enlarging brains, empathising
  real representative intelligence
  modelling...

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*Image of Hikers Warning by Pixabay.

Out Of The Way

As a self-proclaimed ruler of my person, I am mindful of the internal convictions, external constitutions as Lord overseer of my spotless realm,

Upon my own free will,...

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What remains 
when gratitude for learning
totally evaporates?

I don't know...
Totalitarian senility, maybe?
I guess I don't understand
the source of your question, dear.
Do you feel less grateful for learning
than in more formative years?

No, I don't
but I sense younger...

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And I begin my own steep climb into 
The Chalkland Downs                        ...

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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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In Shaker Heights, Ohio,
founding fathers co-invested in:

Change doesn't happen
without planning

This, despite
unstraight
unwhite
unmale volatile experiences
feeling sometimes victimized
and sometimes blessed
by unexpected weather transitions,
despite feeling like vulnerable chameleons
on a highly complex day,
despite feeble farming
in narrowing spaces
between floods and famine,

Despite...

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Sex Hex
by Michael R. Burch

Love’s full of cute paradoxes
(and highly acute poxes).



Love
by Michael R. Burch

Love is either wholly folly,
or fully holy.



Nun Fun Undone
by Michael R. Burch

Abbesses'
recesses
are not for excesses!



Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving...

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Glowing days that were once red-cheeked and ripe with promise,
Are narrowing like tall candles in a church window,
Tapering from the golden stand and the sturdy base,
To the glorious flame and the ever fading light.
The final...

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Glowing days that were once red-cheeked and ripe with promise,
Are narrowing like tall candles in a church window,
Tapering from the golden stand and the sturdy base,
To the glorious flame and the ever fading light.
The final...

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The direct sensing of information may sometimes be deceptive and illusory due to such factors as coincidence, congruence, or the time-and-angle distortions of perspective. For instance, the parallel railroad tracks seem (mistakenly) to converge at...

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Continued from Part 1
Ah Consuela! I’m watching the vertigo veiling her green Spanish eyes,
while the drumbeat pounds, droning, the rhythm sounds, moaning,
                 of jungles Jamaican entwined
in the valleys concealing the vineyards revealing
                 the vaults in...

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Our Most High and Most Holy GOD has thereby changed my Persian name of
Roxanne to a Hebrew name of Rachel.  Rachel was the favorite wife of Jacob,
and was of course, his first choice. ...

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When my first Grandchild was born I loved
him from word go.I arranged my work schedule so that I could keep him when his mother returned
to work.I would arrive about a quarter to eight to his...

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Glowing days that were once red-cheeked and ripe with promise,
Are narrowing like tall candles in a church window,
Tapering from the golden stand and the sturdy base,
To the glorious flame and the ever fading light.
The final...

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For the last few days
     her depression had weighed
          heavy, a thick woolen shroud,
        ...

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In a sudden, I felt immerse with a power beyond my understanding
Awash with a newfound strength I might hope in rendering
In the meantime, shadows from the piled skeletons around were coming to life
And from the...

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Insurrection
by Michael R. Burch

She has become as the night—listening
for rumors of dawn—while the dew, glistening,
reminds me of her, and the wind, whistling,
lashes my cheeks with its soft chastening.

She has become as the lights—flickering
in the distance—till...

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Glowing days that were once red-cheeked and ripe with promise,
Are narrowing like tall candles in a church window,
Tapering from the golden stand and the sturdy base,
To the glorious flame and the ever fading light.
The final...

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Twenty-six came fast... Possibilities
close in by the hundreds, as if they were marching
to the sound of a choke-hold.
Pressure's a good thing
when it has us make something
beautiful, or something hot.
Stardom, creation, art, 
invention, love, whatever...

Those are...

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I recall my having saved something:  A special sized box … a uniquely colored rubber band … an old, old hat … or a million sundry other things, thinking that sometime in the future...

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