Long Scuttle 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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“He fought often and once bled in the cause of freedom, but his habits of War did not lessen in him the peaceful virtues which adorn his private life.”  Doctor Benjamin Rush, signer of...

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Haiku Variations
by Michael R. Burch

This is a poem composed of haiku-like stanzas:


Variations on the Seasons I
by Michael R. Burch

Lift up your head
dandelion,
hear spring roar!

How will you tidy your hair
this near
summer?

Leave to each still night
your lightest...

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Unquotable quotes: Witch-Doctors and Tribal Headmen – XXV (Part Two)

Which Asian “King” would crown himself “Emperor” during an elaborate theatrical ceremony while facing and exhorting the ruins of his Illustrious Ancestor’s capital?
Which commoner army captain...

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Once upon a time in the lands from the north, south, east to west    
Navigating on the cold white sands formed of sugar and ice       ...

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First let us take our friend the horse
a noble creature who serves us well
supplying us with a source of good compost 
ferrying us here and there in fine style
pulling carts and carriages with aplume
carrying riders...

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Turtle by the Door


The bears and wolves are few;
one threadbare widow mourning,
two grays as consumptive as smoke.
The large dwindle,
their bodies grow more awkward,
more at odds.
The heavier beasts sway
like drunks in the scant woods.
Under a pelting...

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day and night Blattaria of various shapes and sizes 
scuttle with incandescent 
   after glow as flashing blur rises
to fill every quarter of mine cerebral core, when asleep pries
me lids awake with shell...

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Come see my world where the body is found
After the feast of worms is done; come see torn apart
The life and prospects skipping rope in children's heart
The dust drizzles atop the sutured sound
And eyes litany...

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You look sideways at me
I look straight on at you
You glance towards me
I stare at you
memorize the stiches of your coat
they are uneven
 it must have been handmade
You look up at the sky
I look at...

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Prosperity’s flush, hues a rainbow dispenses
beyond (ultraviolet), less (infrared’s heat): (1)
from gamma rays down to low-frequency photons.
Both snakes’ and mosquitos’ eyes love infrared light.
But life with warm blood is born blind to heat’s wavelength,
obtuse to...

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For merely a hunch or a hint of a kiss
I nearly was lunch for a hit on a miss
She shimmied for me in a short pirate skirt
No army of men was a match for this...

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The mossy green lump juts invitingly
An overhanging face of vertical formation
Moist rocks often kissed by hovering clouds
The steep trek is overwhelmingly dangerous

Fearlessly she set out for the daunting climb
A pull that attracts goal-driven people like...

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Retrieved Passage 6:
From The Book of Days - The Cellar


Don't send me down to the cellar
I swear I won't do it again
lest my sanity goes inter-stellar
and I beat myself senseless in vain

Don't send me down...

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Is Friendship Just a Delusional Fiction?

Is friendship a lifeboat that floats on convenience?
Can we all divorce who we like with a gesture
that’s less than a wave on a looking glass seascape,
ignore too, the wreckage of...

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Life is a Peach

‘Quincy’ had been treading on the eggshells of his brittle mind
                    cracked up...

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shivering teeth the ceiling’s descent,
the drunken spongy borders of
dim imagined soggy pulsing
images in foggy spots,
exhalation and the sound of exhalation,
sense as the center of dampening paper
surrounded by our soft cocooning breath.
the shrieks are streaked across...

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I stand and watch the exodus of ants
Through sig sag tracks, they wind their way
They march like disciplined soldiers
Never deterred by hurdles on their way

Are they fleeing from an imminent danger?
Or are they on their...

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They gathered outside my house,
People, walking around, brainwashed zombies,
Mindless drones, programmed by societal norms,
Floating through life with vacant stares,
Lost in a sea of monotony and conformity.

Their faces, dull and expressionless,
Eyes glazed over, completely voided of...

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Reciting soliloquies to lonely cobbled aisles,
a fractured mind drifts within innocence.
Remembering long forgotten memories
with a chortle, echoed against the crawling mist.

Black BMW cruises the street,
hoping to pick up a war,
and as the train grinds to...

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Dark clouds scuttle heavy and full
	cold wind biting at the exposed flesh
brown grass crusted with rotten snow
	abandoned Park ignored by those passing by

often passing fleeing quickly by
	thoughts of the meaning rotting deep inside
feelings long festered...

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Henry’s Rust Bucket

He had managed the steep rise from a valley to his home and sat on the small 

stoep. Another koppie towering ahead, he looked straight forward and counted 

his blessings. One, by one...

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Scrubbing dishes in a cold kitchen,
on a tabletop rats nibble
through a leather bible cover. 
She turns,
a lock of sweat matted hair over one eye,
shakes a red knuckle at a wailing child
sat on the floor by...

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There is some darkness in you and me.
There nests in our soul some iota of monstrosity-
Wanting to be set free, to break loose in glee:
It burns in our veins, and nags our pale soul.

There is...

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From my stark cave I breathe the tang of
blood and sweat; your breathing slows in
    alarm palpable and sticky as you
slink away with trepidation. In your staccato
    crawl, rocks tumble
        down from your slope,
        betraying your endurance.

Bats flap elastic...

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