Long Pumice Poems

I don't know what came over me that day - an instant of weakness after years of resistance, I suppose.

My beaming spouse leads me, a dog on a short leash, into the forbidden citadel, the...

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"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Anaïs Nin







“Man Eating Flower” 



Voluptuous lips 
Velvet soft and slick
mouth words that skip
and crush off wet tongues to 
french kiss and swallow
all...

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Grab Bag Poems and Epigrams

POEMS

Less Heroic Couplets: Dark Cloud, Silver Lining, Dupes
from “Love in the Time of the Coronavirus”
by Michael R. Burch

Every corona has a silver lining:
I’m too far away to hear your whining,
and despite...

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With canoe and hook of a jawbone
  below a great fish Maui snared,
and his brothers half-crazed behaving
  leapt and gouged in frenzy craving.
From Palliser Bay to Cape Reinga 
 (departing place of the...

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CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS



Catullus LXXXV: 'Odi et Amo'
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
I hate. I love.
You ask, 'Why not refrain?'
I wish I could explain.
I can't, but feel the pain.

2.
I hate. I love.
Why? Heavens above!
I wish I could...

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From now on, I depend on God* for my salvation
Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven’s mansion
He, thru His blood, paid for my redemption
As He reached down to me with His compassion.
Thus, I possess...

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Diamonds are a dangerous commodity.
Topaz brickettes pave lost roads 
for the unfortunate paths 
of bewildered Dorothy's
(and misguided second-removed cousins).
The birthday cards
I send myself,
are never returned to sender;
they're forwarded to you.

Rubies are ominous and a crucial...

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I hate what is happening. 
It seems that there is in fact no good way out.  
All I can think about is failure, futile future.  
No end, a dead end, 
no joy or...

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There are circumstances in life
that frighten people from finding new thresholds
as the random footstep trepidates the mellow rabbit,

the immense,monumental,momentous achievements of our lives
oft commence with common & innocuous prevails
over mild and trite tribulations,
impulsions,risks,spontenieaties
are the instruments...

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Sleeping volcano

       Volcano in slumber state, now at rest seems inert inactive,
       but can erupt at any moment becoming reactive, 
  ...

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He appeared out of nowhere and convinced me to sit with him for a drink.
His eyes were wide and glistening, his brow - of the knowledge within.

I asked him his name and where he had...

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I didn't think anyone would ever argue that I am broken
Life has thrown up one too many challenges to me
I survived but I suppose i am more like magma from
Volcano
I am like molten rock that's...

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Clarity
She dwells near the bubbling stream.
And she will wash her hair to smell the nature.
As the flowers flow in the sauna, where there is a silence; not to imagine a good or a bad dream.
Oh...

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Angifi Dladla

There is Someone, 
or a presence,
I am not sure;
but I feel it
driving me – a voiceless
passenger, in cycles.

Sure of my way,
I sometimes feel
like changing track
as if there’s a radar within.
I dodge wounds, tears;
I bump...

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under this gray suburban sky
if my heart will be made of stone
I swear, it will be pumice stone
 it will float
over resentment and disaffection
over boredom and illusion
over anger and incomprehension
over discrimination.....

if my heart will be...

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Anger always ask against antidote
Billowing blusters break, blindly break
Callous conversations cannot connote
Diligent discourses dilated dispeak
Emeralds emitting energy enthused
Forces fabled fragility fusing
Gravity's greed governless galloping
Homeward, haunted hillsides horrid hues.
Infernal interest in imaginary incidents
Juxtapose jeopardies jostling jeers
Kindred...

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sorry I have to abandon you
because your toxicity level 
has reached an all time high..
the inability for you to acknowledge and accept 
that people have differing opinions ...
your whole life you've wallowed in self righteous...

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Sandbagged the walls to
insulate sound
Mercy Oh humbled men
who are mercy Bound
trumpeted muses amongest
the fray
wine drunked night
a sun filled day
Extrudtions of evening past
Scoria pumice
must you ask
then as weighted we
stand tall
amongest the needs
there beyond the brink
of thought
we...

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Volcanic spat and gracefully fleeing,
 clawing free from cloying breath.
Flame and fire, bolt and thunder
Lofty pride puffs its wheezing lungs.

Pumice stone, hiss possessed,
Soar and tumble, spew and tremble,
pyroclastic gush, clean sweep scrapes
Its hellish gush claws...

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Burping sulfurous fumes
its fiery belly heaves
and gas and ash erupt
knocking me to my knees.

Beneath the pumice beats
a throbbing heart of heat,
and I can feel its pulse
surging below my feet.

Treading on crackling skin
I weigh each step...

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The Earths end, sky, sea,
pumice stone, windward, lee;
life grasp, grey, alpine scree,
Christian Church Burren be.

Pillars, lentils, altar stone;
plucked from ancient giants bone;
life, minute, crevice formed foam;
Eire’s core, St. Patrick’s home.

Distilled essence, brightest note;
sweetest scent, verse...

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for self deception
sulfur fumes incite
mood swings
soaring to clean the malice,

reaper of gravity zero
what was the price,
of a tongue, mimicking
the greatness?

between birth and death,
for survival of crotch,
undressing the fear, terror
inflicts  the pumice,

for honour killing
a roadside...

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