Long Recounted Poems

Villanelles

The villanelle is a poetic form based on repetition, with a double refrain. 



Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day, 
with the...

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The kid who often was lost in 
The sauce Joshua! His 
 birthday was in June. He became
The strong silent youngster with 
The youngest kids. 
 A small Celebration was held in
Josh's honor party at...

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“The Remaining”

PROLOGUE:  “Terra Firma and The Bitumen”


"The slow descent into Hell
Had led Her mind to escape to Heaven
Her firmament was Her Mind
Her body just a Shell"


Heaven for Her existed in The Dream
She called Her...

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Poems about Things that Break I
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old...

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Villanelle: No man can on his own escape written fate

         For Thiru-Valluvar, the “nameless” author of 
the THIRUK-KURAL

Note: In my previous posts, especially on Canto 38, I...

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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 . ....

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Now Regan and Megan were down on their luck
    and faced with little or no choice.
So with a quiet trepidation... a deal was struck
    and from now all would...

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Harriet Harris née Kuritsky...

Despite being a nineteen year old bride
she wed Boyce Brandon Harris
half a decade her senior,
(where I ranked less than a twinkle in their eyes)
during the month of June 1955, 
not quite half...

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Now as the years passed by everyone became so tired
the heaps of things scattered around became too much to bear
some benevolence was certainly grand but this was too much
the two felt unable to undertake ...

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Twice the night had fallen upon a sleepless slumber,
Yet again awoken by winter when the third was three in number.

I sense that a silence doth sneak ‘tween cracks of weathered wood,
Conniving with that which shadows...

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Once the night had fallen upon a sleepless slumber,
Whence the winter woke me when the third was three in number.

I sense that a wince doth lurk and wear which wicked gaze,
Of conniving shadows cast between...

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Groundhog day 2024 or Forty one days since 2023 Winter Solstice

Rather than be a day late
and dollar short, I opted   
to post poem acknowledging
the second of February,
where eponymous groundhog
gets his (most often male)
foretelling...

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Thrice the night—the day!—both fell to sleepless slumber,
But now in Spring, though yet again: The third was three in number. 

I sense a wince remind itself,
Of what it means to be,
Instead to beg for booked...

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Stricken with anguished nausea

Written three years ago tomorrow, 
yet superimposed (likened to 
emotional palimpsest) upon 
mental state of yore
recent post traumatic stress 
triggered courtesy war
torn legally tendered greenbacks, 
where enemy bonded, heisted, and netted 
mine...

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Sunday February 2nd, 2025 Groundhog Day

Location: Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. First held on February 2, 1887 prognosticating how many more weeks of winter weather without a shadow of a doubt. Aforementioned site chosen for...

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A wince doth lurk wearing which wicked gaze,
Of conniving cast shadows ‘tween my windowpanes.

Gazing through the window’s diaphanous gelid glass, 
I see a flushing fluorescent misty haze of frothy brass.

It floats aloft the frost of...

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There was a twenty minute lull
Before the paramedics arrived to
Remove Greatgrand Dad's 
corpse. When the paramedics 
Arrived they examed Greatgrand 
And confirmed the family's dread.
 Damian and CJ accompanied 
The body to the Hospital. While
Julius...

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It was late in gorgeous springtime, and I was teaching my class,
A lesson in African history, and the events of time's hourglass.

My fourth graders were very attentive, as I recounted the glory,
Of tales such as...

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Frice the week along with night had fallen to sleepless slumber,
Trapped again 'tween times when thirds are three in number.

I sense a grimace gurgle in these halls of boned wall,
The aching whims and shaking limbs:...

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The date of the celebration
(the second day of February) coincides
with medieval feast of Candlemas,
and its pre-Christian predecessor,
Imbolc, a day also rich in folklore.

An old Scottish prophecy foretells
sunny weather on Candlemas
means a long winter.

The tradition is...

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Dark, the night morphs slowly toward dawn.
In its last vestige, the moment in which night becomes morning,
he speaks to me.
I refer to him as "he" only to supplicate my own delusional need
to believe that a...

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Later that evening Seileach enjoyed a giant mushroom dinner with Joulupukki, Ceridfen, DynDoeth, Gwaldon, Bréagán, Chroí, Lumi and the two humans.  It was a large gathering with many other friends and family and the...

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I aim to live in the here (ahem hair) and now...

despite entrenched familiar
obsessive compulsive disorder behavior
distracting me courtesy
countless what if scenarios,
particularly before undergoing
voluntary drastic makeover
as iterated in a previous poem,
and briefly recounted here
as foregoing Samson...

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Dedicated to the Oklahoma Sooners & Saint Barry Switzer

-------------------------------------------------

Fifty years, boy & man, I’ve been a Sooner Fan;
And, like others, I’ve wondered many times:
Just what is Sooner Magic?
Is it real…or only in our minds?

Sooner Magic...

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This is not for any contest especially since I like better versions than the one sung by Glenn Hughes which is not much to my liking.  Furthermore, this is more in the region of...

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