Long Ruffled Poems

Family Poems

Mother's Smile
by Michael R. Burch

There never was a fonder smile
than mother's smile, no softer touch
than mother's touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than "much."

So more than "much, " much more than...

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Poems about Children


The Desk
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

There is a child I used to know
who sat, perhaps, at this same desk
where you sit now, and made a mess
of things sometimes.I wonder how
he learned at all...

He...

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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 Butterflies and Bees



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...



Album
by Michael R. Burch

I caress them—trapped in brittle cellophane—
and I see how young they were,...

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Beckoning
by Michael R. Burch 
 
Yesterday the wind whispered my name
while the blazing locks
of her rampant mane
lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday
I saw the way
the wind caressed tall pines
in forests laced by glinting streams
and thick with...

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Poems about Poems V

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

There is a small cleanness about her,
as though she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.

She...

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Alone I arrive, walking from Frederick
over the gaps, across gentle hills
out onto a knoll
overlooking this burnished landscape.
Before me I see countless writhing rows
of indiscernible shapes gathered
in terrible rituals mid fire and smoke
darkening the sun.
From distant...

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Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers II



All Things Galore
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfathers George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

Grandfather,
now in your gray presence
you are

somehow more near

and remind me that,
once, upon a star,
you...

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"Lizzie Borden took an axe,
gave her mother forty whacks,
when she saw what she had done,
gave her father forty-one,
she washed herself from a watered pail,
she claimed their lies and vicious tales,
she pled not guilty and moaned...

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A born lioness my untamed heart? ha! 
a mouse, this pulsing token ruled by unruly wants
at times given, traded or stolen - sometimes
thrown down on a dare to be won or lost 
till it became...

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These are poems about starlight and moonlight, moons and stars, dreams and visions, illuminations and intimations …



Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch 

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?

And will she find...

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"The Crow Bar"

she said,
here I bury my dead,
you can hear them sleeping
somnulent forget-me-nots,
snoring blithely unaware,
in neat rows between 
the thick,
ink injected lines,
their soiled lives
ploughed and 
turned over 
replanted
sunnyside down
expunged and 
wrung out

eventually,
not totally oblivious, 
they...

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A Whistling Girl and a Crowing Hen
 
By Elton Camp
 
 
	“We keep thet big flock o’ chickens fer eggs and meat,” Milas explained to his niece Elvira visiting from the city.  “We git...

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thermometer reads zero, a chilly breeze blows
  apple cores thrown, the blackbirds feed
  my multi-layered partner dons her wooly hat
  impatiently, she waits for me
  securing covid masks amidst my overcoat
...

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“The Apocrypha of Familiars” 

Wings hover 
light luminescent
revelling sprites dark pearls
Corvidae shades
of a family 

highly functioning
dysfunctional plural
morphing unobserved
perceived non-unique 
spiralling into shape

more black and grey
than white spills 
from their eyes
light from their shining 
hidden away

intelligence...

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In the cottage Dyndoeth spoke with Joulupukki.  
     “I simply do not see any way that you can accomplish the goals you have set in the amount of time that...

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Circa February 12th, 2122 ~ 10:30 PM

Equals twenty one thirty 22:30 military time
future time traveler looks back one century ago,
oceanic waterways overladen with green slime,
yours truly attempted crafting id est feeble rhyme
far from madding crowd,...

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"The Well of Tender Moorings"



Deep as the coolest deep dark well
Seeking sanctuary in thy fathomless ocean,
The immaculate buoyant waters of thy untamed soul
I lie between thy corporeal shoulder blades and muscles
Bathed in thy efflorescence, the...

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After swimming at Cherry Beach, I had been returning home,
With some very cool memories, of the sand and green foam.

On the drive back I had resolved, to take the scenic route,
Like the pathway down Magnolia...

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Future time traveler looks back one century ago

The following poem tweaked 
courtesy original author who crafted
literary endeavor some couple years ago.

Now circa August 20th, 2122, 
or 1930 military time,
yours truly attempted 
drafting id est feeble...

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for Ronald Hindmarsh-Midwood 
                               ...

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Since I had long fervently loved flowers, I had become a plant breeder,
Striving to create more perfect blooms, to make summertime sweeter.

My current task was the endeavor, at creating never before seen colors,
In much longer...

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Future time traveler looks back one century ago

I exhibit health and virility at one hundred and 
64 years astride planet earth, whereby spouse,
(who remained married to yours truly for about
one century – which elapsed in...

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When I stepped in here
I caught the unsymmetrical patterns on the wall,
The dark maroon contrasting curtains,
An open cupboard and 
A thick layer of dust on the broken mirror
The floor, the surrounding 
A damp room with...

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Date   August 10  2014
 Damian stood facing his new full
Length mirror recognizing his new
Image. "Not bad. 13 looks good on
Me." He muttered in his
Room which was amazingly without 
His pesky brothers and...

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