Long Rip Poems

AFTER THE KARCHER FIRE LOUD SILENCE FBI AGENTS WERE GETTING CLOSER CIRO GARGANO WAS NERVOUS UNRAVELING THE CREW STORED THE CONTENTS OF THE TAILOR SHOP IN THE GARAGE AT LAKE COUNTY MUSIC COMPANY THE GARAGE...

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(Inspired by my sister, Laura Breidenthal’s poem called “The Dream in His Eyes” and also, inspired by Disturbed’s song “Forsaken”. Special thanks to my sister for such an awesome poem and the writer that wrote...

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Salvation of a Formalist, an Ode to Entropy
by Michael R. Burch

Entropy?
God's universal decree
That I get to be
Disorderly?
Suddenly
My erstwhile boxed-in verse is free?
Wheeeeee!



Eternal Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm...

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R.I.P.
by Michael R. Burch

When I am lain to rest
and my soul is no longer intact, 
but dissolving, like a sunset
diminishing to the west...

and when at last
before His throne my past
is put to test
and the demons...

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Medieval Poems



Wulf and Eadwacer
(Old English circa 990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My people pursue him like crippled prey.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

Wulf's on one island; I'm on...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XI

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and...

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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...

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I have travelled through the cluttered corridors of my tired mind countless times. 
I have reached deep into the dark abyss of my captive soul and in that profoundly disturbing darkness, I went searching to...

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OTETS THE MANY DAYS AND NIGHT YOU LENT ME YOUR 
DIVINE EAR THROUGH PRAYER DURING HARDSHIP TIMES 
AND ILLNESS RAISING MY GRANDDAUGHTER KEEPING HER 
SAFE IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS IN WISCONSIN OUR LADY OF 
MOUNT CARMEL...

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 A French ‘Indianist’ Doctor: A Tribute to a Die-hard Humanist
                         ...

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MY PRAYERS ARE WITH ALL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIMS AND SURVIVORS MY DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SITUATION STEMMED FROM MY WEARING WIRES PREGNANT FOR THE FBI BUYING WEAPONS AND DRUGS FROM JUNK SICK COPS BECAUSE THE FBI WARNED...

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After witnessing a murder meant for me after surviving a car bomb igniting my skull crushed my face bruising my brain i received threatening calls from my husbands mistress I'd reported break ins strange behavior...

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WHAT BEGAN WITH PETER GARGANO TREASURY OF THE KNIGHTS IF COLUMBUS SAN CARLOS BEACH IGNITING A CAR BOMB IN MY FACE HE THEN HIRED JAMAICAN JAY TOWNSEND JOHNSON HENRY AKA JAMAICAN JOY Y JONES MY...

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As I awakened to the night terrors again it's 3am. I know I'm being monitored in my own home Ciro Gargano installs cameras to watch my every movement in order to know when I write...

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My first grade field trip begin Joseph Medill school of journalism Chicago my first grade class sang African American spiritual hymns performing at the Schubert theater the museum of science and industry the museum of...

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I knew my life was in grave danger when I contacted the FBI desperate plea for dire help IDENTITY FRAUD ON MY LIFE BY IMPOSTER JAY TOWNSEND JOHNSON HENRY received threats from special agent Alan...

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So many people and the various sores
Intoxicated in such a way my eyes,
That wanted open to crying their doors.

But Virgil told : “What for you look this guise?
Why now your sight is so carefully brought
Down...

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THREATENING CALLS MY ABUSIVE EX HUSBAND HIS MISTRESS JAY TOWNSEND JOHNSON HENRY JAMAICAN DEALERS IN TAMPA I REPORTED THIS MADNESS TO THE FBI I HAD NO IDEA HOW FAR THIS WOULD GO MANIPULATION FEAR TO...

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She stood with her back turned to me
Leaning slightly towards where the light tapered off into darkness
Her faced buried deep inside her cupped hands 
Her own shadow towered over her seemingly at odds with her...

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The First Thanksgiving (Sept. 3, 1578)

The shortest distance to Cathay 1
(Land of riches: silks, teas and spices)
Lay to the north to the South Sea. 2
Didn’t Barlow tell the King, 3
Was reserved for England.

The routes ‘round...

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My wounded heart drinks deep from the rotting gut of misery,
Humanity vomits its relics onto the oozing tiles of the real.
I see kids chewing syringes like candy canes,
Their innocence smashed, face down on the concrete...

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K: I'm so not sorry for what I've done
I was in a university, having so much fun
In a university in this splendid city,
J & K: But you don't see me
You don't see me
Everybody, let's get...

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SPECIAL AGENT PAULA BRAND ARLINGTON HEIGHTS ILLINOIS NEEDED MY DEATH SHE HAD NOW BEGAN EXPOSING MY IDENTITY TO JAMAICAN DEALERS IN TAMPA IMPERSONATING ME WITH CONVICTED FELONS CONVICTED AS A RESULT OF MY WEARING WIRES...

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Break my neck; snap it in two, snap it in half
don't give me that incredulous, frightened look as I ask
don't hesitate in front of me, please just do me this favor
so I gain a halo,...

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"The Call of the Grimoire" 


when Exalibur was retrieved 

from the rock, then foolishly 
and irretrievably lost 
in that dreadful battle most worthless

the imps encouraged 
the once good Poesie folk 
to jeer and throw pebbles

the...

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