Long Put aside Poems

Pagans Protest the Intolerance of Christianity
by Michael R. Burch

“We have a common sky.” — Quintus Aurelius Symmachus

We had a common sky
before the Christians came.

We thought there might be gods
but did not know their names.

The common...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VI



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee
and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold
when I awoke.

She came to me with the sound...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems X

These are early poems written in my teens and twenties.

Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear...

once starlight
languished
in your hair...

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret,
a pain
I chose to bear...

unleash
the torrent
of your hair...

and show me
once...

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For All That I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch

For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...
and yet I hold her close within my thought:
I feel the burnished weight...

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At Tintagel
by Michael R. Burch

That night, 
at Tintagel, 
there was darkness such as man had never seen...
darkness and treachery, 
and the unholy thundering of the sea...

In his arms, 
who is to say how much she...

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Various Heresies 6

Altared Spots
by Michael R. Burch

The mother leopard buries her cub,
then cries three nights for his bones to rise
clad in new flesh, to celebrate the sunrise.

Good mother leopard, pensive thought
and fiercest love’s wild insurrection
yield...

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Bright lights, big city...
bright lights, big city dreams...
please just take me away tonight
Let me rest on your elegance tonight
I have no energy left to spend in reality
so please knock me unconscious
just to be in the...

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Bharathidasan’s “Pulikku nay enta muulai” (To the Tiger, the Dog knows no safe dwelling!) translated by T. Wignesan 

Bharathidasan (1891-1964) was a self-proclaimed disciple of the eminent Brahmin poet: Cuppiramania Bharathiyar (cf. two poems of...

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(based on Aldous Huxley's book "Brave New World")

Human hatchery

Clink clink clink clink...
Test tubes prattling past
along the chrome plated production line.
Glistening under fake fluorescence
humming in harmony
with the magnetic motors
of conveyors, centrifuges and camshafts.
Biological blobs of gamete...

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Close your eyes
Explicit shame sheds rage in my eyes
I’ll be alright in the morning light and the night’s so bright
Open up your eyes
Sharpen me like your pensive pencil……
Begin with me, thinking I’m not thin
Paper thin,...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XII

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly,...

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The Providentiality of Farming in Giantvillism 

Eccentric people with their characteristics and ways must move forward to a more defined place.
The climate enriches the Earth and science is formed for the vegetation to bloom.
By being...

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Considering how many times I set out to pen a small,
Master piece of art, a gem that might underwrite,
The utter liability of being just that stamp,
Or tramp, or whatever other denomination one might reliably take...

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I May Be Mistaken
By Franklin Price
9/19/2018

I may be mistaken but, in watching all the raves,
 I believe our founding fathers are rolling over in their graves.
We're not acting patriotic when the parties have their say.
They're...

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She Hasn't Killed me yet
                           58.

   ...

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Choices my dear one,
So many choices, 
So few voices,
Some near,
Some far,
Some to fear.

A path.
Clear and chosen.  
The erasure of a closing.
The logos of math.
The trajectory of wrath.
The conciliatory legislation blindly ruling the cosmos of...

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Jesus or Father Christ trials and sorrow…
•	Left His Heavenly kingdom to come down to earth to be born in humble manger with animals
•	Was a target for murder from the moment of birth
•	Suffered from the death...

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(continued from, "An Epistle Warning against Melancholia: an Allegory--Part I," where somewhere in late 18th-century Europe a friend, Laetitia, by way of a letter warns her beloved girlfriend, Euphoria--a young, gay and unsuspecting mistress--against the...

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Close your eyes
Explicit shame sheds rage in my eyes
I’ll be alright in the morning light and the night’s so bright
Open up your eyes
Sharpen me like your pensive pencil……
Begin with me, thinking I’m not thin
Paper thin,...

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I logged on to Face Book and, when my memories came came up, I saw this poem that I wrote January 2, 2020. I am editing it for January 2, 2022 as I see it.

Oh...

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I have to put you away again
My Dear and Special Friend
Deep inside of my folly, a
Pleasure having you visit 
My Irish melancholia

You’re here, I am not sure why
I think it’s not locking up
These months you...

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Silence and Shouts

I listen to him breathing.  If it’s labored, I ask, “Are you okay?”
And from over the rings of walls of silence he has built around himself, 
He implores, “You hear so poorly,...

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Bee ware


My first week’s pay!
What am I going to do!?
I have never had this much honey beefore!
First of all, I will go to,
The joke shop and get me those books I saw.
I could do with...

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This small island civilization,
its empire was the largest creation,
with the widest trade connection,
there are mixed views of our colonization.

Many modern countries exist because of the British,
many justifiably say our actions were most brutish.
Some have hate...

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Your body gets tense, you start twitching 
Your mouth keeps opening, as if to ask something  
But instead you just start babbling 
 
Talking about everything and nothing  
Making jokes and acting foolish...

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