Long Quilt Poems

Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.



Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death...

Read More

Observance
by Michael R. Burch

Here the hills are old and rolling
carefully in their old age;
on the horizon youthful mountains
bathe themselves in windblown fountains...

By dying leaves and falling raindrops,
I have traced time's starts and stops,
and I have...

Read More

Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers IV



Neglect
by Michael R. Burch

What good are your tears?
They will not spare the dying their anguish.
What good is your concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm...

Read More

Sonnets XVII-XXIV

Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch

The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten...

Read More

MODERN SONNETS I

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.


Maker, Fakir, Curer
by Michael R. Burch

A poem...

Read More

Poems about Children V

Pan
by Michael R. Burch

Among the shadows of the groaning elms,
amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves

Once there were paths that led to coracles
that clung to piers like loosening barnacles

where we cannot return,...

Read More

You are a 15 year old girl;
so young and able;
stature small , petite short not tall,  they hardly see at the kitchen table;
And at school it's not cool;
you're chosen;
But not for love, just..
Lust;
you see...

Read More

A Vain Word
by Michael R. Burch

Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls
as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining
till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls
under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining
to the darkening...

Read More

“Sophisticated lady” gropes the table at her bedside, blindly taking random swipes to kill the morning scream 
That shatters little privacies she shares with no one else, and steals, with full impunity, her one recurring...

Read More

Many of us have a favorite possession from when we were young, and this 
93-year old gentleman is no exception.

               ...

Read More

“Sophisticated lady” gropes the table at her bedside, blindly taking random swipes to kill the morning scream 
That shatters little privacies she shares with no one else, and steals, with full impunity, her one recurring...

Read More

Chinese Poets: English Translations

These are modern English translations of poems by some of the greatest Chinese poets of all time, including Du Fu, Huang O, Li Bai, Li Ching-jau, Li Qingzhao, Po Chu-I, Tzu Yeh,...

Read More

Here's the deal, friends...
   This is, as indicated, the THIRD 1/3 of this very lengthy poem. Due to Poetry Soup's file-size limitations, this piece had to be posted in 3 parts! 
 ...

Read More

This Permaculture Design Operetta
comes out from within you
with universally acclaimed Grand Patriarchal Earth Rights
to sing in reverse harmonic rhythms and blues
with Full-Octave Matriarchal Earther Feminists Wronged,
marginalized in pre-millennial peace-maker roles
postmillennially re-inheriting the Good Society's climate...

Read More

8.Reading

I see them all rise to an endless sky.
Tumbling burnt pages from raging fire,
To leave ash of closer, to pacify.
A single deep breath near flaming pyre.
To see destruction with a silent face.
My eyes will cry...

Read More

In the realm of moons and breathless tides,
where promises dance with a serendipitous sonnet of sunrises,
along with morning kisses, unfolds a love story—
a poetic novel etched in the chronicles
within the hourglass of time,
a journey that...

Read More

Unquotable quotes: Paris, the last week of the August reprieve – XXXV
 Part One                     ...

Read More

Happy is he who isn’t led astray
He walks in happiness in his stride
Tranquility is in His Word today
Here, I lay in silence in which I hide

Blessed is he who doesn’t speak with ungodly men
Blessed is...

Read More

Poet's Pre-Notes: A poem from my 8th week in a Stanford continuing education class offered on the internet, a study of free verse and structure. The poem writing technique is to write as unconsciously as...

Read More

Pasha Acremodios grew greedy,
discontented with the domain he dominated,
so he turned covetous eyes toward Farabia,
sending his soldiers to seize this ripened plum

Spoiling for a fight and fighting for spoils,
his army swept across Farabia
like a bloody...

Read More

Driving down a country road one sultry summer evening, with headlights sweeping through the little clouds of dust ahead, 
Caused by cars that led the way…or met me in the night…I scanned the ditches, left...

Read More

Coincidence or not, virtually every married couple I know that is comprised of two farm - or small-town - raised persons is thoroughly enjoying as close to an ideal life as can be expected in...

Read More

These are poems about Ann Rutledge and her romantic relationship with Abraham Lincoln. 

Winter Thoughts of Ann Rutledge
by Michael R. Burch

Winter was not easy,
nor would the spring return.
I knew you by your absence,
as men are...

Read More

	I
Friend, whatever brought your life to end
had no appetite for mouse flesh, nudged your
small gray body on its side with a thorough sniff
and left your corpse exposed on the asphalt path,
then, for reasons of its...

Read More

LETTER TO A SOLDIER
A Trilogy


I.  SONGS OF LOVE

Love walked with me
In the crisp fall air
In a shower of gold and red.
Love showed me the print
Of a doe’s foot
And where she made her bed.

Love sat...

Read More