Long Proverbial Poems

Twenty two years had passed  by

She blinked, and a lifetime had passed

She started this job as a lark

She never thought it would last

Two husbands and rehab were part of this bar

The husbands...her clients all...

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Where Does the Butterfly Go?
by Michael R. Burch

for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails,
when thunder howls,
when hailstones scream,
when winter scowls,
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
Where...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems IX

These are early poems of mine, written in my teens as a high school student and during my first two years of college.

Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of...

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It might take a more comprehensive review
to explain why I thought it would make sense
to read
The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for Anger:
Using DBT Mindfulness
and Emotion Regulation Skills to Manage Anger
(Chapman and Gratz)
AND
Evolutionary Enlightenment:
A New...

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"The Beetlejuice Past Your Eyes"


“Well, where would you suggest I commence? Should we begin with the concept of pasteurize?”

This said to the earnest listener, who views the protagonist with a bon vivant confused expression. To...

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“The Splice of Life”



When colour 
was to be 
washed out
of the world 

the evil ones 
didn’t care

the Actor led 
with his 
Dementors 
either side of him

Laundry, 

they resolved 
to be the best 
pristine method 
for...

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"Fragments and crumbs of life, all the little pieces"

                    John Ruskin, 1853


I think of youth’s sweet...

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I once had a treasured mid-western friend who                           ...

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Unquotable quotes: Poets, Poetasters and Platos – XXXVI

     For James McAuley – in remembrance of a memorable week in Cardiff 1965 

The greatest poet ever is NOT Homer, Lao Tse, Ovid,...

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JOE VERSUS THE RACCOON 
By Kate H. Stark


Each night ‘twas the same old proverbial shout. 
“Hey Joe, will you please take the garbage bags out?”

Joe sighed, rolled his eyes as he walked toward the door....

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?Universe interconnected?      
            ®O?N~§ € £ F€º 
?{Interconnected»«Universe}?
    Pen's Broadcasting Name
     ...

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The moral mortgage of mice and men 

Yours truly quite astute,
especially regarding cute
little field mice, also known 
as meadow voles,
which imprecation one doth emote,
when aforementioned animal burrows inside
leaving pellet size poop in their wake
suddenly presenting...

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Mimi and Mary T.
By

M P Walsh


It was 25 December,
And a snug-warm Christmas day.
The temp was over 50,
The weather: bright, not gray.

But a sadness on this Sunday fair
Perplexed me...what was wrong?
As I left the cape with...

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They sit on their own
in their Hermit Kingdom
other side of the wall
singing their song 
entitled 
nothing to envy

peeling the skin 
away in generations 
it's worse than a famine
where colour 
is wrung 
from the inside out

emotive...

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Personal vicissitudes pronounced irrepressible self loathing

Ever since mine late boyhood
when unstoppable coded 
cellular processes did segue
I experienced abhorrence
toward yours truly,
an extremely introverted kid,
whose parents nor siblings
(one younger and older sister) could
not arouse him 

out of...

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After winning a sweepstakes, I determined to go on a lengthy trip;
And I wanted to tour the mainland, after I had disembarked the ship.

The countryside was quite beautiful, and had myriad charming towns,
Some with the...

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Variations On A Theme...
of hodgepodge strewn helter skelter
wonky inviting reader to mentally swelter.

Ach'n (ache Ken and burn'n) 
kickstarting existential and proverbial struggle
me species classified as generic muggle
analogous to entertainer 
with namesake of yours truly
starring an...

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Ohh I could have sat with my heart 
--elevated with dribbled echoes-- 
ahhhhhh until it yet exhaled the tarnished seams 
capturing only the quiet current lapping
and soaking dirty steel embankment	
along the river’s edge beneath the...

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It is very late, and this is the last place that I should be, but here I sit alone in the dark parked outside on your street
Only hours ago, when you had last spoke to...

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Someone may say to you, "Your wish is my command".
You will then look at such a one and say, "Really! You don't say".
The reply to you is, "I do say, and anything you desire is...

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"Who can bear to lose a tie
With a dog that is man’s best ally? .......by poet


"Here lies my dog, motionless in his kennel
unable to wag his tail as he always did.
yesterday when I saw him,...

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Amouage is given
to the Pope, the King, the Queen
some we offer willingly others begrudgingly
the honorable can be challenged or challenging
the dishonored deemed unworthy,
placed upon a teetering putrid pedestal
Though at times impartial are the judges, not...

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A total Jedi mind f*ck from Hell is what this is. I feel like a nuclear bomb has exploded in 
my mind of Hiroshima proportions and I am on the brink of a Chernobyl meltdown....

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anticipatory anxiety fosters catastrophization...,

especially bombardment of online scare tactics
courtesy fiendish insidious loathsome sinister oafs
rubbing their hands at aggrieved party;
punch drunk cyber thieves ecstatic
acquiring by hook and/or crook
sought after precious, priceless, and proverbial data
after loosed ransomware...

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Do not look to me with questioning eyes - I do not possess the answers you seek 
cannot taste the bitter sweetness on your tongue or smell the withered flowers 
along your path. My heart...

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