Long Phantoms Poems

Village in the Valley left behind, and then it's a fine find
Mountain in the making...in the dark alleys of my mind

You're a flashlight
In the night
You are a friend 
Till the end
Bite the bullet
You're the village...

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the Horror
by Michael R. Burch

the Horror lurks inside our closets
the Horror hides beneath our beds
the Horror hisses ancient curses
the Horror whispers in our heads

the Horror tells us Death is coming
the Horror tells us there’s no...

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Poems about Things that Break II
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter.
 
 
 
Water and Gold
by Michael R. Burch
 
You came to me as rain breaks on the desert
when every flower...

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Legacy accompanied with inadequacy DESPAIR RING
uninvited GUESTS linkedin as the themes of mein kampf.

Despite countless factorial permutations
& combinations, this cyber surfer
avails left and right alm
seeking succor Out Of Human Bondage
invisibles shackles bind head,
shoulders, knees and...

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Starlight and Moonlight II

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




Deliver Us...
by Michael R. Burch 

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The night is dark and scary—
under...

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I don't see you.
I've been searching my whole life,
But still, I don't see you.

When I was a wee lad
I looked for you ...
My mother's smile,
My father's toil,
My brother's refuge,
My sister's amity ...
I didn't see you.

Thanksgiving,...

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  Another Cruel Link in their Chain 

1.   Beginnings

Her babe was her joy, such a beautiful boy,
	and he suckled her breast till the end.
The slaver sought cash, bestowed mammy a thrash,
	sold her...

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.                          NOW

Well, GI Jack is welcome back, he left his...

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Glory to thermodynamics in general...

and generation of heat in particular
cuz yours truly 
spoiled with trappings 
of Western Civilization.

How ideal I imagine 
to dwell in a self sufficient domicile,
where thrum of the central heater...
automatically activated 
upon...

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We are the days that we’ve become. 
moments dripping gifted from
the lounging clocks in rolling melted sightings, 
given by the gifted madness of a soulmate’s fightings. 

Our lives wrapped up in phrases coined
in books like,...

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Once so loyal and always true the gargoyles watch everything now
During their stony slumbers with their careful one-eyed open view,
As evil red-eyed demons rain down upon us in their dark-sprit forms,
Whilst our unsuspecting mortal Earth...

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I’m on my way, I’ve got to go
(the reasons why you’ll never know),
whisked away in winter’s winds, your sleeping sighs remind me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close...

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“Up men to your posts! Don’t forget today that you are from old Virginia.” 
– General George Pickett

Beneath Gettysburg's sun a merciless blaze
Stood Pickett with his face etched with war's haunting gaze.
A mind torn asunder...

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"Years” and “Distance”, phantoms of the dark that do their evil
in the quietude of the everyday, coming and going without so
much as a footprint or a whisper, and taking the most valuable
possessions of the heart,...

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A Bohemian Maze of True Evil

Once so loyal and always true the gargoyles watch everything now
During their stony slumbers with their careful one-eyed open view,
As evil red-eyed demons rain down upon us in their dark-sprit...

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Once so loyal and always true the gargoyles watch everything now
During their stony slumbers with their careful one-eyed open view,
As evil red-eyed demons rain down upon us in their dark-sprit forms, 
Whilst our unsuspecting mortal...

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That soft-spoken Sovereign commands a big stick, 
runs the world into ruins, once our bailiwick.
If asked why, He grins grimly, pale lips slightly pursed:
"Vindication? Straightforward: It's Me and Me First" 

(To mesmerise people He needed...

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“Strange Ways, Here We Come”




the devil’s advocate
came waltzing 
through my doors

“I had no choice”
the supercilious harbinger said,
“to intervene, to parlay away

something 
not 
mine

now 
you're 
doing time 

not the criminal recidivist
nor usurping interloper
and their profound lies

every...

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"The In-Between"

I ripped the pages of 
that tired old story 
from the heart, a body of work

buried the misdiagnosed slanders
then wiped their mouths
with the back of my spoon

the feed they found,
passed the disingenuous time;
some found...

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and spoils of Western Civilization.

Thrum of the central heater...
manually activated upon advent of twilight
(since yours truly not resident within "smart home"),
nevertheless warm cockles and muscles
appreciate basking, and luxuriating,
within climate controlled environment,
whether bone chilling deep freeze...

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I, heart on sleeve ... proudly? I suppose, in a contrite way ...
          but it's beyond my breadth to control, so it is what it IS.
...

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The elderly, the injured,
The deficient, the mentally ill,
The sick, the chastened,
The weary, the suicidal,
The innocent, the broken,
The lost, lost, LOST ...
You are NOT there with them ... 
Only sadness and loss and pain.
The animals, the...

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Hypothetical Lust

                                 ...

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Phantoms

Phantoms, nightly steeds, flared nostrils all aflame 
with their steely hooves thundering on my brain, as they came, 
these apparitions shrouded in blackness, to carry me off, conscious, 
into the darkness, into the mystery of...

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"Birthing the Vortex"



the complexities of a myth
borne from the birth 
of amorphous seat 
in dark matter brain

storming dimensions never seen
merely guessed, intuitive, unblessed
visage of a lost majesty
she’s returning to true self 

all wrapped up in...

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