Long Satire Poems

The Original Sin: Rhyming Haiku!
 
Haiku
should never rhyme:
it’s a crime!
-Michael R. Burch
 
The herons stand,
sentry-like, at attention ...
rigid observers of some unknown command.
-Michael R. Burch
 
Late
fall;
all
the golden leaves turn black underfoot:
soot
-Michael R. Burch
 
Dry leaf...

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Limericks
by Michael R. Burch



Clyde Lied!
by Michael R. Burch

There once was a mockingbird, Clyde,
who bragged of his prowess, but lied.
To his new wife he sighed,
"When again, gentle bride?"
"Nevermore!" bright-eyed Raven replied.



The Platypus
by Michael R. Burch

The platypus,...

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Limericks VII - Naughty, Bawdy, Risque, Absurd

There continue to be modern sequels of the famous "Nantucket" limericks, including this bawdy one of mine:

There was a lewd whore from Nantucket
who intended to pee in a bucket;
but...

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Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

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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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Juvenilia: Early Poems IV
I wrote this around age 17.



Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.

I read the Bible from cover to cover at age eleven, ten chapters per day, at the suggestion...

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“We have never heard the devil's side of the story, God wrote all the book.” 
Anatole France

"I heard you wanted to see me Boss?", Lucifer asked.

"I can always see you Lucifer", replied God. "No, I...

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I met with some bankers in fine textured suits.
I struck a deal quick. (I had such a knack.)
I offered rare cacti and tropical fruits – 
a cure-all for things that ail your back.

I served 'em...

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Greetings to those who would willingly seek admission to theater of the absurd. Zoltan Goliath and Otis Trench are masters of the avant-garde genre silent musicals for the imaginary stage, an art form sui generis....

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Prizes for Ultimate Sacrifices


    prizes for the abstemious  for abstinence  chastity ?
                 the countless...

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 After graduating from UF, in the early '80s I wrote the book, lyrics and score for a musical adaptation of Moliere's farce Le Malade Imaginaire ("The Imaginary Invalid") and have decided to post five...

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Free Power
                                 ...

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One day not long past our economy faltered
And wouldn’t improve if our course were unaltered.

'Cause we buy stuff at Wal-Mart (where things are dirt cheap)
'Cause they buy from China (treats workers like sheep

(So farmers left...

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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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Don't you think that this title is darkly divine?
But, of course, there will have to be weirdness that’s funny,
Though my nightmares are many and have complex arcs
There’s some risk here I might have to work...

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The Almost Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent Tech God Oisin
Session 2: Tech support notes from the server backup and dead chicken case

“Hello this is Oisin. How may I help you this morning?” Oisin says in his polite...

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Date:   June  2051

11 am.  Hot moment of Monday 
Morning Molly entertained  Dasheri 
In the gymnasium while Holly busied
Herself preparing the family's large
Meal as she appreciated a hip hop
Song. She pressed...

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Written in summer of 1976.


I used to eat my lunch with groups
of businessmen from Campbell Soups.

We drank a drink at lunch each day
Of Coca-Cola mixed with hay

And talked of pending corporate plans
And willow-haired orangutans.

I spent...

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“The External World of the Internal”

when the Internal 
finally woke up,

it was like all the words 
in that book, flew at It 
like flaming arrows, 
an external barage, a tale, 
of trading 10 for 50,
a...

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"Call it curiosity"
Does anyone on this app really believe
That somehow or another every one of us
Truly think that one side is meant to deceive 
Or that one side is the one that is only one...

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I'D GO OUT ON A LIMB                             ...

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Say I:

On the websites I used to share, I was frequently amazed 
     Poems got greeted with silence; it seems eyes were quickly glazed. 

It’s as if I’d morphed into a...

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Tell us what everybody most needs to know about the 2020 Global EarthRights Party.

Well speaking for myself,
and I guess probably my extended family
of diverse relatives and friends and neighbors,
certainly including the polar bears and turtles
and...

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Again the alarm is set.

Strawberries, date squares…Yum, Yum.   

The alarm rings again. The tea party is over.

 She returns to her perch where her wings are immediately clipped by the Bald Eagle who...

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The Almost Omniscient, Omnipresent, Omnipotent Tech God Oisin
Session 3: Tech support notes from the messed up file and mushroom soup case

“Hello this is Oisin. How may I help you?” Oisin says in his polite business...

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