Long Rail Poems

Psychologically still thirteen 

Ordinarily meaning pre Internet days
familiarization with me would entail
bringing the avid listener 
into my private mancave hideaways
less a physical place than a juncture in relationship, 
(whereby one or the other of us)...

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The First Valentine Poem

Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465) has been credited with writing the first Valentine poem for his wife in 1415. Charles wrote the first Valentine poem in the first year of his captivity while being...

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State of the Art (III)

These are my "ars poetica" poems: the ones about the art and craft of writing poetry in a modern world that doesn't always recognize the artists or their work. 



Come Down
by...

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Sonnets LXI-LXX

Erin
by Michael R. Burch

All that’s left of Ireland is her hair?
bright carrot?and her milkmaid-pallid skin,

her brilliant air of cavalier despair,
her train of children?some conceived in sin,

the others to avoid it. For nowhere
is evidence of...

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Poems about Poems IV

The Toast
by Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and gray,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak...

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Pellucid pachyderms wade across
the purpling River Manjees
and Tozzath watches from the bank, 
the seat of his maroon pantaloons soaked with mud,
his nostrils flaring with the fragrance of ombadalias,
whose lacey petals flutter
like the wings of long-dead...

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It was September 
Of one thousand 
Nine hundred seven
The end of summer
With apples lying thickly
Under the apple trees
And the smell of Autumn
Covering the grass
Filled with ripe yellow
And orange squash
He was born in a little
Wooden house...

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At once she paid a visit. In her colorful dress, so revealing and appealingly suited to her slendern torso. I to gaze the door way, mine heart pounded viciously,  a death knock. I was...

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Once again it’s Saturday; the day when footy reigns supreme.
The Dogs are up against the Cats, the premier favoured team,
but I’ve got no doubts the mighty Dogs will surely cope with that.
I couldn’t think of...

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Stood I there, that last day,
On an iron bridge...
An aqueduct by design,
Where, looking dreamily out over
The Ernes Lower Lough,
My compressed shadow 
Momentarily paused -
To contently recline:
Amidst coy Junes radiant beams 
of sweet benign!
All was stilled,...

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Poems about Poets VII

Gallant Knight
by Michael R. Burch

for Alfred Dorn and Anita Dorn

Till you rest with your beautiful Anita,
rouse yourself, Poet; rouse and write.
The world is not ready for your departure,
Gallant Knight.

Teach us to sing...

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It was late in the perpetual summer, and I had been dozing,
On a blue and balmy afternoon, as I lulled on my porch swing.

When from my pleasurable dreams, I was eventually aroused,
By sweet breezes that...

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uncomfortableness, and hesitation arose that you might reassess a possibility for friendship or.... whatever with me.

A disappointment set in place in the event that based on some facet of my being (inexplicable flaws within this...

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The Whiskey Bottle Wish

 	One late summer night outside a saloon in the mid-west, an intoxicated Dusty Rogers, stumbles out of the Bar nearly taking one of the revolving doors with him. As he flutters...

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Stood upright, between two roads,
On a thin metal rail,
A solitary, brown coloured bottle 
Of beer,                    ...

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Reaping short terms benefits...

before marital savings bond matured
as a then quinquagenarian.

Courtesy gerontologists medical practitioners
allowing, enabling, and providing
the elderly population to live
longer and healthier lives.

Linkedin with longevity loosely translates
to resurgent libido spurring
older folks predilection
to participate in...

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It was Christmas Eve, a Thursday
On the Northern Express Christmas Train
We were on our way north through the wilds
And our  destination was to be old Hornepayne

One hundred and eighty two people
Three kittens, one goat...

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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...

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Oh to vacation behind the heavy metal door
To escape another election year.
All news is stopped at the door by the guards
Whoever sit in the same place
Waiting
Always
Waiting to retrieve all banned goods
And outside time. 
Between med...

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This is a translation from Rabindranath Tagore's (Nobel-laureate Poet From India in 1913) narrative poem - Phanki. We need to remember that this story is based on life at late nineteenth century Bengal, India. The...

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But we of the Three Tribes live undiscovered 
   In the reverberating stillness of the 
 Three Gorges...
And are therefore unknown to the warring mongol;
    His impassioned lusts -- his...

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Hilda my partner turned in her bed as the early morning train hurtled by at breakneck speed sending tremors round our dwelling.
Those long flowing tresses embrace the shafts of first light so enthusiastically.
An otherworldly spot...

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Under the midnight moon, romance waited
its true heart and beauty, with love baited
for dawning gleam across powdered snow
and she her handsome soldier to soon show
for his appearance was far overdue
she could hear his parting words,"...

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One day in early summer Murphy the Irishman came to town,
He rode upon a matted mule , his face was burnt and brown,
The corks that hung from his bushman's hat persuaded flies to keep away,
But...

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I will never forget the Feast of Tabernacles at Lake Arrowhead
I spent my nights there in our beautiful rented house
With Spy loyally by my side
 He slept on my bed and kept me feeling comfortable...

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