Long Pamphlets Poems

Various Heresies 3

Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XI

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and...

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It was 1968 we'd gathered again in the school auditorium my tiny hands sweating only five years old while my name was called in all of this cold  
civil rights riots plagued my little...

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These are prophetic poems and apocalyptic poems ...



The Vision of the Overseer’s Right Hand
by Michael R. Burch

“Dust to dust ...”

I stumbled, aghast,
into a valley of dust and bone
where all men become,
at last, the same color...

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For years, Tim had the visions
Seeing things that no one could
If he spoke of them, he's crazy
He kept quiet, like he should
Just normal, little, visions
Of people who were dead 
Just wandering in places
He knew weren't...

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(There’s a song for this: ‘Confessions’ by Sudan Archives)

I remember it like it was yesterday (it was yesterday).

I arrived on a cool (42°f), blindingly sunny New Haven afternoon. It was as if they’d opened up...

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My people love marching!
Attending rain dancing parades,
doing a bunch of fire-breathing talking
Little drummer boys and girls
playing foot soldier pretend grown up
Just defending the truth,
those marionette walkers will yell at you
in designer protest fashion
Motion activate the...

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Thou Art a Witch!

By Elton Camp

 In the 1690s, a horrible, warning example we find,
Of the danger when church and state are intertwined.
Number convicted as witches was twenty-nine
Though many more the Puritans came to malign.

Cotton...

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Pictures of the dead,
pamphlets of the deceased
They’re passed out at every funeral,
where the broken hearted grieve ...
handed out like business cards
This strange belief
is a superstitious tradition
that truly mystifies me
There’s a lot of underground networking
going on:...

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There are visions roving inside my head 
of a time and place where perhaps I once lived.
But how do I know of those worldly things
if I no longer exist?  I must question if I...

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I was sleeping and dreaming, silently screaming, while violently weeping And mildly feeling that I was honestly grieving I was quitely greeting my anxiety's breathing It was wildy eating at who I was... I could...

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I grew up in a garden paradise
large white house in the country
sheltered by ancient oaks and naievity
passed idyllic days in childhood bliss
never ran it much through my mind before

until the day
I walked two hours with...

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"Cruel birds—ravens—but wise. And creatures should be loved for their wisdom if they cannot be loved for kindness."
- Hannah Kent


My lover's demons are like ravenous ravens.
Her love is a hand grenade triggering exploding emotions,
massacring words...

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I was born in a banana republic,
Between the carnivorous chains of Françafrique,
In an open-air dumpster,
Where tyranny, barbarity, and savagery speak with arrogance.
I am perfumed with all the nauseating scents of misery.
I grew up under the...

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Discussed varying views-of the Lord today.

 
Joe I belive His name; gentle-man I believe truly... yes... .

 
Don't all wish to be... ?

 
Full of goodness-graciousness though maybe-timely.
 
 
Tide-souly to security I suspected given...

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DUSTY POET

Dust before donkey doomed 
            a wicked whirlwind 
grains of wisdom wrinkle 
          ...

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When the 
glacial sun slips 
in softened womb 
of the scarlet 
spheres at dusk, 
yearning for 
hibernal rebirth 
as a lustrous 
morning star, 
it radiates 
golden beams 
like lakes of sunshine,
flowing over 
chiming starlit bells...

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Don’t let them get you talking
bat-on-brain, beak turned upside down
Don’t let them have you walking
with your throbbing head spun around

Everything simple is now so plain topsy turvy,
silence is the complex New Wave sound

Aisle confusion ...

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     " In titanium haze of love,
             truth is but a mere lie, 
     ...

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Broken but disbelieving, we wait   
for any doctor to say it’s just blood
as the gray man greens, throws-
up in triage. A Goth teen holds Band-Aids
to her scalped thumb.  Somebody loses  
patience,...

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Where is humanity? 
as Congolese players,
stuffs and fanatics 
were about to sing
their national anthem 
at Afcon tournament,
they put their right hands 
on their mouths
to express the silence 
of the international community 
into the problems of...

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Rome seems a defaced beauty
with its past specters roaming aimlessly,
not finding the home where they once lived sumptuously;
ruins upon ruins: marble, cement, 
grass, weeds, and streets with cobblestones. 
One thing hasn't changed: the splendor and...

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Week six.  
There is a natural disaster occurring, tsunamis of 
morning queasiness Monday through Friday, Tuesday's
lunch on my favorite pants, denial dances on the weekends.
It was Sunday. One word, two syllables causes a tornado...

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MEMORY OF NOTHING

Listen:
Drag branches comeback
Across the forest floor:
Knowledge of the rough¡

At water’s edge
I gather some things up:
“Happy Ending Story”.

We’ve the time to give the Babel Tower
A close reading.
Awful good, Tú
As Roy A. Rappaport’s
Ritual... as Communication...

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The uncaring profession is thriving once more, 
no more laid to rest it has kicked down the door 
and exploded again into all of our lives;
political cut backs with blunted old knives. 
The tax –payers’...

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