Long Pungent Poems

Epigrams by Michael R. Burch

If brevity is the soul of wit
then brevity and levity 
are the whole of it.
—Michael R. Burch

To write an epigram, cram.
If you lack wit, scram!
—Michael R. Burch

Conformists of a feather
flock together.
—Michael...

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"The Payload" 

The payload 
came crashing down
like rain expelled
from the fat belly 
of a ruinous pregnant cloud 
bilious with buxom promise

it came crashing down 
like school fish released 
from the tight confines
of a course rope...

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"As other spirits sail on music, mine, oh my love, swim on your perfume." Charles Baudelaire

"Sometimes you find an old bottle from which the soul returns." 
Charles Baudelaire

"Smell is a Word. Perfume is Literature."

"There are...

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Poems about Adam, Eve, Lucifer

Eden
by Michael R. Burch

Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone, unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat?
Fruit indecently sweet,
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma...



Outcasts
by...

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the Horror
by Michael R. Burch

the Horror lurks inside our closets
the Horror hides beneath our beds
the Horror hisses ancient curses
the Horror whispers in our heads

the Horror tells us Death is coming
the Horror tells us there’s no...

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"Barefoot in the Bushfires of the Vanities"



Heat rises slowly to rapture flames licking and teasing
Blue Ghostgums to stretch and crack wide open
as Fire spreads molten sweet sap bleeding burgundy all over 
amber gold wild bush...

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For a few coins Melord, I'll tell a story of two that met in this place, 
and here you can take your rest, and leave sumpter to graze in the tall grass.

I payed the old...

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"PHOENIX: Bleeding Hearts and Blue Violets”


 

Broken Hearts bleeding red
You lie in white sheets
Turning in the crisp clean pages muddy with
Black Dogs barking in your head
They run all night chasing your tail
You twist and turn...

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This is, obviously, the 2nd THIRD of this lengthy poem. Due to Poetry Soup's file-size limitations, this piece had to be posted in 3 parts. How fun...
   The 1st and 3rd THIRDS can...

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“Strange Ways, Here We Come”




the devil’s advocate
came waltzing 
through my doors

“I had no choice”
the supercilious harbinger said,
“to intervene, to parlay away

something 
not 
mine

now 
you're 
doing time 

not the criminal recidivist
nor usurping interloper
and their profound lies

every...

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Unquotable quotes: Teachers – XXI

The pupil, the bitch and the walnut tree, the more the teacher beats them, the better they be.
In the old days, teachers were born to the métier like poets; today softwares...

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 Diary Notes: Lament at Dawn A Year Ago and yet now No Change
				                     ...

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The Greek gods were egotistic, arrogant, jealous,
Said to be excellent lovers, fanatics, and zealous
About everything and anything, lounged around
Adorning places like Marathona, the Acropolis
The Parthenon.  Archaeology
Maintains that Greek Mythology 
Goes back to the Bronze...

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Who suggests a trip back...rides to this bit of nostalgia in the middle years of the Great Depression aboard a Chicago elevated train, "the El." We hurdle head-long above asphalt blanketed streets that are determined...

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A boy and board in Brooklyn
bedeviled by the breath of baroque battles
bemused with a belligerent brain beauty
and befriended by battlefield bravado, 
the chessmen championed his ego
wickedly warring to a visionary's voodoo,
those soldiers of black and...

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Into the woods we ventured, where darkness began to encircle us,
Their ancient murmurs mingling with the forest’s ominous chorus.
A chilling breeze, as if the very breath of the woods sighed,
Veiled in tempestuous clouds, the stars...

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I awake in the early morning darkness
frozen, motionless, immobilized,
my eyes straining to see into the black void
looking for any sign of my keepers,
listening for any kind of movement
Phantom-like images dart around me slowly,
multiple images spring...

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My (bleeding) heart is filled to overflowing, 
To see any growing glad(iolus), garden glowing;
Each sun peached, (petunia) petaled delight,
Is frozen in precious moments of pure delight,
From bursting buds, to the spicy boom of blooms,
Nature is...

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The Naked brazen placid blue
Meets its foe the dark forbidding nemeses
Who unleashes his growing anger and fury
Obliterating and defeating his enemy
Proclaims a victory and unrolls his miserable shroud
With utter contempt
And spews his venom
Impregnating his virgin...

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Humanity Canteen

My restaurant is exclusive and classy no paupers allowed though I
have to declare that I picked up the chef near the township where
on a paraffin cooker in his garden of plenty lots of dishevelment...

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"The Boadicea Blood Cup"


Didst thou think? Didst thou?
Didst thou think, at all?
That thou would remain untouched, unchecked, unscathed
Safely locked up away from mine wrath and thee, thy self-made grave?
Imprisoned in your Dark Lost Woods of...

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Diary Notes: Lament at Dawn
				                             …at the...

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Time echoes and resonates without language,
invests in green triumphal backdrop
below mystic blue sky,
splattered

Blossoming in yellows and spindling purples
blues and flaming orange,
fragile moments of fully fertile fractures,
flagrant erections of next generation's hope
for full coloring 
perennially emerging...

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What if the difference,
or a more significant difference,
a profound past of Tipping Point reference,
between nondual Left-Right bicameral consciousness
and more dualistic philosophies
and religious theologies
Is ZeroPrime rooted
more in listening to outdoor acclimators
more than indoor would-be-transformative,
reforming,
retributive punishing
WinLose competition...

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I see us
cowering within
our safety walls
of sterile
nonorganic comfort

I feel us,
almost smell us,
struggling
vacillating between pungent stink
of fear inside
and acrid
acidic anger
about life sucks outside

Emerging toward viral hate
directed against entitled Others
unwelcomed emoting immigrants
encroaching on our safe home space

It...

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