Long Proudest Poems

Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.



Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death...

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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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THE INNER CHAMBER

Please.  Stop holding back on me.

Like a child standing at the neighborhood ice cream truck, arm outstretched, eyes huge, mouth watering.

I stand here longing to slip underneath your decades of cold-rolled steel...

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This is the 2nd Half - sorry, this is the only way to get my long pieces posted - an full length audio version is also posted 


“Every single person, and the minister agreed…and just...

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Think twice this world can be such a wicked place my sweet child.
It's all coming back to me now, the memories we shared.
Goodbyes the saddest word, be careful in a world so wild.
You used to...

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It is all very well for Mr. DesCartes
to think with his mind
and therefore be with his body,
yet this fails to explain
why when I think happy and healthy
I feel like I am more,
and when I think...

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I recall the day she journeyed to the delta from her village above the first cataphract with a New Kingdom attitude and an Old Kingdom strut, inspiring rumors to be passed from shadoof to shadoof...

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Jolly Polly Sue Conner was her name, and she came
from the grand old town found just outside of Harvest Oak,               ...

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When my son was small he and his friends loved to play marines
A brown eyed soldier dressed up in his helmet and his jeans
I asked him why he always died whenever they would play
He just...

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I never knew a love before


Of you my proudest moments stand
For only I can see
This life was once a jumbled mess
Much more than it should be

I gaze upon the history 
Of what has come and...

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The pageantries of mighty kings to us were shows that mattered not,
Beneath the shade of blades unsheathed in Kalima we glory sought.
Our only life was then to face the perils of Your Holy wars;
To glorify...

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Making A Difference                                ...

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chester sat in the second row
every day at his school
no one asked, no one knows
but yet the kids were cruel
Ms. Jenny had a simple task
to teach by the book
but chester never seem to pass
so she...

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Football brought shivers to folks in Three Rivers
With slivers of Fall in the air
And the crowd was excited but not so delighted
By weather more cloudy than fair 

A player named Paul was the proudest of...

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Dear Sharon, I see no end 
To the rant of an educated mind
Once the pen is moving. I've seen A students
Butcher my writing. I remember the Fall
Of 2009, the poetry workshop at Stony Brook University,
The...

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All The Things
	
Grandma told me to be mindful. She used to tell me that when I was a kid. What exactly that meant did not completely become clear to me, until after she was gone....

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A Love Letter
Started writing for the Love Letter Contest but finished too late : (

 My Precious Maria,
I can remember it like it was yesterday… your first words to me…
They sang a melody like no...

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the buildings gray stood grand and tall
      the proudest prize of man's bright call
         none dared to think that one might fall
...

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I remember the first roses I received.
I was going on my first official date,
and my beau brought me a beautiful 
bouquet of red roses. At the time I was 
so embarrassed when I had to...

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In April of '57 the US got quite the shock
   The Soviets launched Sputnik
   The space satellite rock  
We fell behind in the race from that very day,
That is, until...

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No, there was nothing routine about a baby sparrow sitting helpless in a parking lane.  
Perhaps a rushing and less observing person would have run over the little lonely bird; But I will always...

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Grandma’s brown knuckles crinkled 
As she gently peeled the heirloom 
Potatoes, discarding the brown-
Skinned strips into the garbage
Bin. She was at home here, alive 
And aloud, tastes and scents mingling 

In the air like wispy...

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My granddad was light,
But not that caramel light,
or even that peanut butter light,
but that "you sure you not white?"
yeah, that type of light.
My mama told me that back then,
when you were that light,
sometimes you wouldn't...

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The writer’s prose like fluid flowed
Across half-a-thousand gilded pages,
With flowered images and profound lines
The was last throughout the ages.
But the follow-up, it got two stars
And critics dog-piled the hate.
Sometimes we shine with sheen of gold,
Other...

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Tormented

A crude soul remained, of a life of a hero silent but brave. Tormented with dreams of days 
gone past, tormented of lives of whose destiny didn’t surpass.  It wasn’t a gun or a...

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