Long Neither Poems

There are many Christians today, that are advocating always,
That we leave 'left behind letters,' to be read latter on, after 
The harpazo of the church has both come and also gone.
Instructing our left behind loves...

Read More

Yours truly would never be confused for a gourmand, nevertheless I could enjoy experiencing taste testing select food samples if offered an opportunity of attending a fancy feast viz smörgåsbord, whereby oral indulgence would arouse,...

Read More

This is the story of mad Molly Shaw
She might be mad now but she wasn’t before
she came home to find her man dead on the floor
She lay down her bible and let out a roar...

Read More

I woke up in the middle of the night with tears running from my eyes. I woke up in the middle of the night because my spirit cries
It is not the tear that falls when...

Read More

I often surprise many people in many ways
With the words I say…with the actions I make…
It’s extraordinary how many seek high praise
With the words they say…with the actions they fake…

Neither will I…
Assume the worst in...

Read More

Galore of buzzfeeding, needling and scamming female hustlers...

with a scheming, loving, and enticing guise
alive and well seeking gullible guys
(once upon a time just like me),
who experiences close encounters
of masterly baited entrapment
on Facebook Messenger
and most likely...

Read More

Food glorious food

Asia generic guy gastronomy (and how gourmet foods eat destructively clearly beyond any) excess enthusiasm, the necessity to feed and clothe this lean mean exercising machine gunning corporeal essence christened Matthew Scott Harris...

Read More

Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.



Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It's not that every leaf must finally...

Read More

Poems about Poems (II)

Kin
by Michael R. Burch

for Richard Moore

1.
Shrill gulls,
how like my thoughts
you, struggling, rise
to distant bliss?
the weightless blue of skies
that are not blue
in any atmosphere,
but closest here...

2.
You seek an air
so clear,
so rarified
the effort leaves...

Read More

Impossible mission to captcha infinitesimal moment

alternately titled: tick tock runneth amuck
seconds elapse imperceptibly 
leaving me dumbstruck,
how quickly fleeting tempus fugit; 
ofttimes imagined as time thief.

Hence following vignette: quiet as a mouse lurks the time thief...

Read More

State of the Art (III)

These are my "ars poetica" poems: the ones about the art and craft of writing poetry in a modern world that doesn't always recognize the artists or their work. 



Come Down
by...

Read More

It's Halloween!
Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;

if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads

uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;

if birds give...

Read More

It's Halloween!
Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;

if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads

uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;

if birds give...

Read More

Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

Read More

His glowing golden eyes glistened with a comprehension beyond the mortal condition

A well-toned, tall, and tanned man, who most, not all, would call handsome

A brightly bleached stalactite overbite gleaned between the mean features of an...

Read More

Do you share my concern 
that your happiness and healthy life 
are too ephemeral,
short-lived?

No! Why? Do you know something I should know?

Not likely.
Just wondering,
awed by your capacity,
your relentlessly positive 
EarthAgapic energy for healthy life,
despite the...

Read More

There is nothing weaker than water
But none is superior to it in overcoming the hard,
For which there is no substitute.
(Laotse, "Nothing Weaker Than Water", Lin Yutang, trans.)

That weakness of mind and body overcomes strength
And uniting...

Read More

Athenian Epitaphs

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
—Michael R. Burch, after Plato

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls
in their...

Read More

No, Freddie can’t say he mourned when his father died and his father’s third wife found Freddie's number and gave him a call to give him the news. His father had been responsible, worked hard,...

Read More

Late evening March 2045

The Teenagers were adventurous 
They were venturing.  DJ and 
Damali Trech were both 18 years 
Old. The Copy Cat Club was the
Place to  be for teens.  It mostly 
Served...

Read More

I am fairly new to this Norwick community.
If I recall correctly
we have about forty thousand households here
where the Connecticut River
conjoins the Mohegan and Iroquois Rivers;
originally deep rich virgin eco-forest 
of and for harmonic rhythm and...

Read More

At Tintagel
by Michael R. Burch

That night, 
at Tintagel, 
there was darkness such as man had never seen...
darkness and treachery, 
and the unholy thundering of the sea...

In his arms, 
who is to say how much she...

Read More

Disability, Illness and Fundamentalism

My brother died of Cystic Fibrosis, 
When I was twelve and he fourteen, 
It took away his ambitions, 
To study at Oxford - the pipe organ’s steam. 

I understand being born with...

Read More

Political Science is the compare and contrast study
of governing authority powers
with concomitant economic responsibilities,
and...um...opportunities,
speaking perhaps too candidly.

Why not other powers?
Compassions 
that can be governed only bipartisanly,
and would like to become
health care co-invested?

Political scientists worry if...

Read More

"Salvage"


Salvage the fixating salvation 
unfurling from the wreckage
of a numb world twisted inside
treasure climbs swimming 
the ladder from the deep of all things 
reaching upwards travelling in a new time
of melting morpheme moments overlapping 
dissolved...

Read More