Long Prow Poems

So bridge to bridge, of other things speaking
Of which my comedy does not take care,
We walked; and reached the top, when seeking
For watching the next slit, then we stopped there
Malebolge to see and crying vain;
And...

Read More

Two, perhaps three miles out to sea, beyond the reef to Zapatillas,
Bocas’ dual sand-edged footprint jewels with jungle centre trees, 
Francesco’s outboard boat heads out to Caribbean’s deeper blue.

Where sun burns softer gringo skin, but...

Read More

A Brief For The Defense 

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies 
are not starving someplace, they are starving 
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils. 
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants....

Read More

WINTER, 1948 [40 Saxton Street]

for W.W

The winter nights that pass now
are so unlike the winter nights
that passed before, that I often
struggle back in those suspended moments
when sleep grapples for a hold,
to once again hear the...

Read More

“Women Have Loved Before As I Love Now”
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Women have loved before as I love now;
At least, in lively chronicles of the past-
Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow
Or Trojan waters by...

Read More

1	A plume of dirt and grime envelops sky;
		The hellish slug of gas does creep along.
		It casts an orb three hundred stories high
		Over the Sun and ends his morning song.
		The birds and trees now stand a...

Read More

major storm on the horizon reported from the "Fo'c'sle"

Though forever being a landlubber
a vision analogous to the nether world
deep within the bowels of the Earth
immensely distant from the sheltering sky
amidst a thick fog enveloped landscape
with...

Read More

A walk home 
...And there he lie in fetid squalor,
Upon the chaise in vacant parlour...

“What befell this young man?” a query.
A sorrowful tale - tis quite dreary. 
Tricks! The superstitious mind doth play. 
Bested -...

Read More

I paid no heed to the call of the siren(s)

where amble lances 
hurled with the might 
of off fish hull seductress dances
setting figurative stage to take a bite
from canoodling beastie boy best eaten alive
or just...

Read More

POEMS ABOUT SAINTS AND SINNERS

Of Seabound Saints and Promised Lands
by Michael R. Burch 

Judas sat on a wretched rock,
his head still sore from Satan’s gnawing.
Saint Brendan’s curragh caught his eye,
wildly geeing and hawing.

"I’m on parole...

Read More

Beowulf Excerpts
anonymous Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem, circa 8th-10th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

LO, praise the prowess of the Spear-Danes
whose clan-thanes ruled in days bygone,
possessed of dauntless courage and valor.

All have heard the honors the...

Read More

Muscles bulging, sinews stretched, I know this ship inside out.
Every rivet I have pounded is to help me to get out.
This ship is new and will take me, to a life I am desperate for
I...

Read More

Ah...herewith ma usual
     dose of pablum from this meal
lee mouthed muttering 
     doggerel wordsmith,
     who now writes...
     so here's...

Read More

When your befuddled mind
Forsakes upon the ragged edge
Of swirling darkness;
Where eternal night awaits
To sate upon purest innocence
Besides an open grave!
When the gravity of your perils
Be foully whispered within
Dismayed
And abject earshot;
Where salvation for despairing souls
Be so...

Read More

THE      ICEBREAKER     KRASIN    -     DAVID    AND   GOLIATH



Between the docks* for   cruise ships...

Read More

Achilles, The Journey To Troy, 
(Part Two) of (Part One-titled, Achilles, His Heart and Soul Were Mortal)

Achilles, The Journey To Troy

Woe! wretched horrors Olympic gods sent that day
mighty king suffered, his treasure stolen away,
power of...

Read More

Granny and I lived in Bemeyills
A land beyond the hills
On a beautiful thatchy
In a tract of a wild country
She wanted me a life of bliss
So she called me and told me all these

She said event...

Read More

Brutus Iulius Trois Page 06

The defeated Pandrasus spoke out
his weary words weighted with wisdom. 
Linus is as Greek as I am Greek and as a Greek
let him inherit the crown, I'll name no other heir.
take...

Read More

Where were you so long ago?
All those eons before a tot.
In some distant god’s château? 
No. Not there. You were not.

On a shelf of surplus stock,
A soul dressed up in heavenly frock.
Perhaps a spirit not...

Read More

poor pity solider
Eager to loose his horrific sight
Though his hope is sweating blood to seek the light
Light that helps him fight, light that kept him tight inside
The light that provides him the moon sight
With his...

Read More

Clipper Ships

My mother; she wasn’t there any more
Burned away in chemo radiology
Therapy for the incurable
As she lingered for a year
Lobotomized by cancer

But in her dreams she sailed her clipper ships
Sailed away on the mighty Cutty...

Read More

~Internal Rhyme~

I longed to explore the seven seas, sails filled with tropical breeze.
My sturdy craft, Hope Anew, would carry me upon the oceans blue.
I was captain and crew of my ship, a bit of rum...

Read More

Stilled again across the canals broadening 
Girth;
Mesh cages of rock-filled Gabions 
Reinforcing patches of exposed and arid earth,
Reflecting the glints that gleefully
Twist and dance in the hot glare of the sun...
Provoking images and stirring indefinable...

Read More

(alternately titled: Zayda born April 9th, 1929)

e'er since his birth,
     his daring do didst not abate
the penultimate most spectacular
     concrete incontestable product

     constituting...

Read More

Her Phantom and The Ghost
 
Waking from a slumber
where light could never touch her
 
And to coax him from her dream
her smiling shade to comfort him
wishing he should recognize
the familiar shine of her eyes

Take him...

Read More