Long Prodigal Poems

I feel in führer rated and envious...

entrapped within webbed wide world
weft as a rump pulled stilts skein
at warp speed exhibiting
my heroic trumpian wiles
cuz he (johnny come lately) a then 
exemplary hedonist, narcissist, 
and polygamist dons
comical,...

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“Son”...”say goodnight to grandpa”

Spurred by mother dearest 
as well as other politesse
drummed into her second born
fobbing blandishments as incentive
tumbled off fingers of prodigal son
tripped wordsmith to splutter forth
forthwith the following lines.

Back in the day 
quaint...

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SELF REFLECTIONS

These are poems about mirrors, images, self-image, reflections, impressions and self-reflection. 

Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch 

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she's grossly...

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Radiance
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea but feels its meaning—
the...

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"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...

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These are poems about Dylan Thomas, as well as poems "for" and "after" Dylan Thomas. Dylan Thomas was one of my favorite poets from my early teens and has remained so over the years. I...

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Myth, after Dylan Thomas
by Michael R. Burch

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 sighing, complete,
waiting, lain in a low...

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Harriet Harris, née Kuritsky gave up the ghost...

~ May fourth, 2005
wedded bliss nearly fifty years
half a century almost
me not most favorite grown offspring,
she (when alive) did boast,
about youngest sister and her family,
unlike me – severely...

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We might do well
to worry less
about including the grizzly bear population
in our cooperatively encultured Golden Rule,
after all,
we already would kill and eat them,
if hungry enough,
as they would like to treat us.

We could do well
to become...

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Date:  August    2025

Mama Lucinda spoke with Delilah and Mallory briefly 
Regarding Damian's 50th birthday celebration. While
Damian was across the road visiting with DJ and the
Rest of the older kids. 11 morning...

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YOU ARRIVED ON CUE I SUPPOSE RIGHT AFTER THE CHRISTMAS DAY ARSONS MURDERS PROCLAIMING MY LIFE WAS IN GRAVE DANGER WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT ARSON MURDER 8 ELDERLY PERSONS PARISHES PROCLAIMED MY EX HUSBAND...

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In the heart where your naivety resides
you wonder what haunts the sun
and why pain enjoys your childhood eyes,
when you see warm blood run
then you know that death can color
and like you, death loves a dramatic...

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Where do we think all this economic and politically empowering
cooperative
nutritional
organically luscious imagination
and ecologically exegetical orthopraxis
started?

George Lakoff speaks of strictly straight stern paternalistic God the Universalist Fathers,
vertically Winning over an otherwise Loser, yet highly competitive, ecopolitical...

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"And when he came to himself"
Luke 15:17

In another millennial time and Chinese/Russian place,
Taoism began as aphorisms and poetry
about political philosophy,
articulating a bicameral tension
between Conservative Yangers,
patriarchal universalist ego empire builders,
and Unitarian Progressive Yinners, WinWinners,
a matriarchal cooperative...

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Date:  September  2050

Damian stood at the front door 
Ushering everybody out to the waiting 
Limousine. "Come on my People 
Be quick about it wifies!"  Sidney
And Saderi were willing to go along
For the...

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It was late in the perpetual summer, and I had been dozing,
On a blue and balmy afternoon, as I lulled on my porch swing.

When from my pleasurable dreams, I was eventually aroused,
By sweet breezes that...

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To God be the glory - great things he has done.



‘I am Eddie Rowlands, I became a Christian in 1985, at that time I also experienced evil opposition toward me, to the extent of being...

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Stricken with anguished nausea

Written three years ago tomorrow, 
yet superimposed (likened to 
emotional palimpsest) upon 
mental state of yore
recent post traumatic stress 
triggered courtesy war
torn legally tendered greenbacks, 
where enemy bonded, heisted, and netted 
mine...

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I'm reading The Evolving Self:
A Psychology for the Third Millennium,
by Czikszentmihalyi,
and How the West [sadly] Came To Rule:
The Geopolitical Origins of Capitalism,
Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nisanciogla
at the same time.

Czikszentmihalyi (C) wears academic labels of Positive...

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Which is more important to you
natural beauty
or spiritual truth?

I guess I didn't notice any difference.

Maybe there isn't.
Which is more important to you
an aesthetically rich and bountiful house
or a safe home?

You realize that's not necessarily the...

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*LETTER TO MY FATHER*

 
Dearest Father
With heart ripped into rags and shreds I write ? to you tonight
Trembling hands and ink made of tears and blood
Teary ?? eyes and bloody heels like a defeated soldier
Lost...

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Switzerland,
part of my own historic root system,
has a Bill of Rights for vegetation,
protecting rights of intrinsic dignity
with concomitant human respect for their healthy and aesthetic purposes.
It is not OK to merely throw away 
without regard...

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I remember waking up to the melodious sound of my mother singing happy birthday,
the aroma of bacon and pancakes wandering through the hall, invading my nostrils,
my sister having no regard for my annual celebration and...

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*LETTER TO  MAMA*

Iye omo to r'ewa 
Iya ni iya mi owon
I know you wonder if your  prayers don't ascend to heavens
You keep asking if the promises won't come true
You're beginning to doubt the...

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Hyperbolic quasi autobiographical prevarication...
caricature sketch of person best known to yours truly

What began as an honest 
to goodness attempt 
to craft personal truthful profile
evolved into a fictional poem
manifested into the following.

Despite the onslaught of paparazzi,
I...

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