Long Plop Poems

The first soft snow: 
leaves of the awed jonquil 
bow low
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness! 
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray...

Read More

Dusk-gliding swallow, 
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers! 
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A bee emerging
from deep within the peony's hairy recesses
flies off, sated
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

That dying cricket,...

Read More

My most popular poems on the Internet (II)

A number of my poems and translations have gone viral, according to Google, and some have been copied onto hundreds to thousands of web pages. That’s a lot...

Read More

These are translations of some of the oldest Japanese waka, which evolved into tanka, renga and haiku. 

While you decline to cry,
high on the mountainside
a single stalk of plumegrass wilts.
—O no Yasumaro (circa 711), translation...

Read More

Grasses wilt:
the braking locomotive
grinds to a halt
—Yamaguchi Seishi, translation by Michael R. Burch

Oh, fallen camellias,
if I were you,
I'd leap into the torrent!
—Takaha Shugyo, translation by Michael R. Burch

The first soft snow:
leaves of the awed jonquil
bow...

Read More

[Now ShallowMan is quite content
receiving FactoidMan’s consent
to quibble and express dissent
as long as keeping covenant
with fingers crossed and belfry bent
when viewing Facts in sealed cement:]

SM
“The Facts you give me circumvent
those ‘truths’ your chuckles supplement;
although they...

Read More

THIS WORLD OF DEW

This world? 
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane's bill.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seventy-one?
How long
can a dewdrop last? 
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dewdrops beading grass-blades
die before...

Read More

Oh Hanna. 

The sinking of the USS Stefan wood. 

Oh Hanna 
I want to take you to Montana. 
We can camp out by the springs we will go and see the way oil is founding...

Read More

Femme Fatale By A Wishing Well 
  (In The Wastelands Of War)

Warm as breath on placid skin,
Soft as gentle summer rains,
Loud as natures angry clouds
That gather in ambushed lanes,
To confer with the wounded boys
Whose...

Read More

Kit

Before I opened the carton,
   I’d chose the name Kit,
      Thinking of strong Wild West women.

Our little girl, Gigi, ran to my bedside, barking
   Excitedly, “A...

Read More

Up up the fly away wig doth go revisited and revised April 19th, 2023

IM pen named Pilot Jane A. Rug
who ascribes to writing poetry
as opportunistic, holistic, and cathartic
warming me body electric
courtesy an outsize 
warm brimful...

Read More

What have we become?
         We who used to sit in my bedroom
         listening to Beatles records on headphones.
We spoke...

Read More

Pig plop at eighty degrees is a synonym of doubt but double octave sploosh is a great interjection into the bowl. Wow. Flush flashing fakery freely framing frogs fingerspelling forged formats. And a deliberate rake...

Read More

Up up the fly away wig doth go revisited and revised March 10th, 2024...

(Any resemblance between the following humorous account and real life circumstance tis purely coincidental).

Went off for hair raising shindig
donning noggin of villager...

Read More

I present unto you 
Unsub one and unsub two
Each looks as I do 
They think like me too
Unsub one will have some fun
Killing everyone that survived
Unsub two will handle the cops and news
As soon as...

Read More

SPIDER

Eight furry legs
Approaching black blob
Screeeeeeeeeeeeeech


COCKROACH

Periplaneta americana 
Out of planet, preys on women's tuxedo
Blob of fat, smell, monster


JULIA'S HAIR

Chameleon
Gunslinger, sniper
Death,myriologue


O SPACE

A junkyard
Sepulcher of machines
Requiem

CROW

Squawk 
Squawk
Gasconade 


LIZARD

A baby lizard
Drops on my hand
Check in


TELEPHONE BILL

Krinngggggggggggggg
Krinngggggggggggggg
Pay your bill today...

Read More

Up up the fly away wig doth go revisited and revised March 10th, 2022...

Went off for hair raising shindig
donning noggin of villager in Nigg
(historic county of Ross-shire,
historic region of Ross
and Cromarty, northeast
coast of Scotland).

Somehow postiche...

Read More

Oblique! 
(The day the gray line Wavered) 

It was hot again, for the third straight day, but it was the 3rd of July; the time the place was Gettysburg and the year was sixty-three 
The...

Read More

An Icy cold, sweet treat.
                       Often starts with vanilla, cookie cream,
  ...

Read More

As told by The "Redoubtable Marmaduke" the fog bog jogging hog


The odd bog dog
Was known as such
Because he lived on a log
By a bog
And everyone thought that was very odd

Now; the odd bog dog who...

Read More

The glory of America, now heats up 
   with agitation poised to strike on the brink 
sans legislation incites humiliation, 
    which goads desecration fete accompli chink 
  ...

Read More

The glory of America, now heats up 
   with agitation poised to strike on the brink 
sans legislation incites humiliation, 
    which goads desecration as fete accompli chink 
 ...

Read More

At nights we’d sit out on the balcony drinkin
Breathin
That thick mug air
Of a New Orleans summer evening.
Livin as easy
As they’d let us
In the bowels of the Irish Channel
Where magnolias bloom all year long
Amidst the cracked...

Read More

End of summer countdown before school year...

countless decades graduating 
contemptible cum laude
hence same time frame every 
August since...the stone
temple pilot age, this beastie 
boy flashes back to yahoos
whose rawhide (mine) they 
miraculously never whipped!

Uneasy panic...

Read More

I don't feel right.
Who is this person?

Each gift given to me today is cutting away at my flesh,
Clean deep gashes in the shape of an X right in the middle of my chest.
Over and over...

Read More