Long Onset Poems

Poem revised Memorial Day May 30th, 2022 at 1500 hours

Flagrante delict adulterous sordid behavior 
automatically linkedin with Lothario;
an unscrupulous seducer of women, 
based upon a character 
in The Impertinent Curious Man, 
a story within a...

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Instruction
by Michael R. Burch

Toss this poem aside
to the filigreed and the wild tide
of sunset.

Strike my name,
and still it is all the same.
The onset

of night is in the despairing skies;
each hut shuts its bright bewildered eyes.
The...

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Poems about Poems (I)



What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer
~~~underwater~~~
watching the shoreline blur
sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles...
Both worlds grow obscure.



Muse/Goddess
by Michael R. Burch

“What will you conceive in...

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Pain settles in quite instantly your senses 
are totally unprepared for this graveness
the notion to sleep sets in like an energetic 
twilight phase the injury abruptly strangles 
thought my ears are always ringing with this...

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Self destructive wickedness arrested, convicted, and gaoled...

with kidnapping little boy 
ordered to suffer
life sentence without parole.

The deadly scourge of  
one obsessive/compulsive disorder
nearly left me starving to death.

Anorexia nervosa absent bulimia 
nadir of onset 
diagnoses...

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I shall resolve to leave this
Place now...
And steadfastly search out,
Nestling between ridge and bluff
Amidst the folds of a foreign 
Land,
Several acres of unkempt ground
Fallow and rough;
Upon which stands...
Crumbled stone walls
With an exposed slate roof in
Some...

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What evidence do we have that businesses receive financial as well as other nutritionally healthy benefits, 
by co-investing cooperatively within health-developing community cultures?

What are financially healthy benefits for cultural communities 
both internal to corporate identity,...

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April 9th, 2024 would be ninety fifth birthday poem for dearly departed papa

The following words crafted soon after the soul of me daddy set adrift into the empyrean realm joining the rank and file of...

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Precious priceless progeny 

     Hands down the most dramatic change ever needed to make the most profound impact awoke from helping beget the first offspring. An internal paradigm shift reshuffled priorities...

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The daily star Tuesday issue...

announces Summer Solstice 2023
regarding ray zing planetary earthlings

Wednesday, June twenty first
at 10:57 Ante Meridian
Eastern standard time
will find Earth's North Pole tilted
closest toward sun. This demarcates

most daylight hours of the year for
people...

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Saturday, September 23, 2023  

Coincides with first day of fall
and Autumnal equinox for said year,
where colorful splash kindled like tinder.

After I riff flecked about thee August
Autumn Equinox 2023,
this seasonal polymath teached you 
fall Equinox...

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Such Tenderness
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza

There was, in your touch, such tenderness—as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable...

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Impressive values,
like love,
claim resources that liberally breed
ecological
natural
physically happy health
and conservatively feed
emotional
spiritual
mentally glad wealth.

Oppressive disvalues
like homophobia and racism
and sexism and ageism
and ableism 
and monoculturing disregard
for threats of global anthro-supremacist ecocide,
express what we are against
because these are...

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Long in the tooth male doth recount, reflect, reimagine...
his woebegone damn dental daze today May 5th, 2021 

No particular rhyme nor reason
garden variety indentured flunky (me)
revisits his salmagundi salad days, 
when oral blight smote 
left...

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Beware The Ides of March 2023
 
Ides simply referred to first new moon, 
which usually fell between 
the thirteenth and fifteenth day
of a given month.

The following events all occurred
fifteenth of March 
across span of millenniums.

One:...

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After serving six long hard years at Methacton State penitentiary...

as mini reunion number 
XLV fast approaches 
Saturday, April 30th, 7:00 pm 
until 10:00 pm
at The Trappe Tavern, 416 West 
Main Street, Trappe, PA 19426
regarding graduating...

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I have heard some things in class today
I pray I make more progress and struggle less
Praying for peace and quiet someday
I want a clear mind from regret and distress

Cold-hearted lies 
Won’t open its eyes to...

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Nascent poetic tribute to black history month...
crafted before onset when people of color  
got acknowledged for twenty eight or nine days
depending if leap year occurred. 

Though I yam Caucasian,
rightful to honor most bitter
racist genocidal...

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The daily star announces Summer Solstice 2022

Tuesday, June twenty first
at 5:13 Ante Meridian
Eastern standard time
will find Earth's North Pole tilted
closest toward sun. This demarcates

most daylight hours of the year for
people living the northern hemisphere.
Just shy...

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Groundhog day 2024 or Forty one days since 2023 Winter Solstice

Rather than be a day late
and dollar short, I opted   
to post poem acknowledging
the second of February,
where eponymous groundhog
gets his (most often male)
foretelling...

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Mine psyche riddled with dybbuk
Thru emerging adulthood awareness awoke
within noggin of average baby boomer bloke
catastrophization toward risk taking I evoke
positive growth experiences throughout vast
number of orbitz around sun never kickstarted,
nor linkedin with potential livingsocial folk,
thus...

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Stars fall under failing skies...stars fall...stars fall...
But stars do not cry.
Into Ochs valley, through the Vale of White Horse...prancing 
besides a Dragons Hill;
It was here that a Roundhead - did a Royalist Cavaliers blood in...

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Stood upright, between two roads,
On a thin metal rail,
A solitary, brown coloured bottle 
Of beer,                    ...

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Mahmoud Darwish English Translations of Arabic Poems



Palestine
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
April's blushing advances,
the aroma of bread warming at dawn,
a woman haranguing men,
the poetry of Aeschylus,
love's...

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April 9th, 2023 birthday poem for dearly departed papa

Borne aloft into the netherland
the body bearing thee soul   
of Boyce Brandon Harris
birth name given to my late father
buoyed aloft united with spirit
of mine late...

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