Long Searchlights Poems

The Tender Weight of Her Sighs
by Michael R. Burch

The tender weight of her sighs
lies heavily upon my heart;
apart from her, full of doubt,
without her presence to revolve around,
found wanting direction or course,
cursed with the thought...

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Sonnets XLII-LI

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water?
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter...
So near, yet so far.



A Surfeit of...

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MODERN SONNETS I

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.


Maker, Fakir, Curer
by Michael R. Burch

A poem...

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Heat Lightening
by Michael R. Burch

Each night beneath the elms, we never knew
which lights beyond dark hills might stall, advance,
then lurch into strange headbeams tilted up
like searchlights seeking contact in the distance . . .

Quiescent unions...

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Starlight and Moonlight II

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




Deliver Us...
by Michael R. Burch 

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The night is dark and scary—
under...

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LOVE POEMS IV by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about love, passion, desire, lust, sex, dating, romance, relationships and marriage. 



She Was Very Strange, and Beautiful
by...

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Sonnets XCVIII-CII

Willy Nilly
by Michael R. Burch

for the Demiurge aka Yahweh/Jehovah 

Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, Willy...

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Pride negatory
Better to share His glory
God writes your story

Special kind of gain
We can only learn through pain
God may not explain

Treasure has a source
Wisdom is treasure, of course
God stores His resource

When God sends trouble
And we climb...

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all the stuff going on that motel was heating up but the locksmith didn't speak
Irish too well & besides he got drunk & robbed the wrong merry-go-round anyway...
Sigh
Banal as it might seem, it's not how...

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FASCIST STATE 

They did not come upon us like blitzkrieg in the night 
or goose step into town like a plague of parasites. 
They crept on us like shadows in increments so small
they did not...

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This song is one of my all time favorites it's called Life Cycles by: The Word Alive.
This song has gotten me through so many rough times in my life.

"Life Cycles"

I'd rather die for what I...

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LEGAL ROMANCE

Law, 
Let me plague you 
With the infectious love of my heart.
Now that I bear the aftermath of your infections,
And your cold blood boils in me 
Like a volcanic eruption,
Let me make babies in...

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Here comes the...
Here comes the birthright to cast out a searchlight. searching for nothing the search keeps us coming...Here....
in-the-search-for-the-something. 
Here comes the lessons to count all the blessings. this is real life, no reset on...

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REVERENTLY REMEMBER REHAB

What can I say?
You are taking your away
all alone with the essentials and determination
learning how to battle pain drug free while armed with invaluable information

you walked into this place a woman weakened by...

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Black and White, no shades of grey,
How I remember my early days.
I felt so safe and secure,
With my family always near.
War started when I was two,
People stuck together as if by glue.
Everyone helped each other,
All...

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the keeper of the lighthouse 
                     that sits above a cliff
enjoys taking in innumerable magnificent...

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“Everything is set to go, the guard makes his rounds at three
then we’ll slip into the tunnel and escape this misery.
Anticipation of this day is what has deafened me 
to all the serenades of Siren...

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Flames of lust
Silence to inhale
The primitive beast 
The precious angels
Stay concealed
In mysterious nights
Of dark and lights

Whether you will grow tall
To be with the Orion
Or will fall
Among the tiger and lion
That dictates the mysterious night
With its...

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Shamed by being unprepared, bewildered, befuddled,
I watch nature transition to twilight, ever so aplomb,
with birds and mammals crepuscular, they're at their prime,
when the daylight fades to muted at twilight time.
Birds calls echo like searchlights looking...

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They wait in the night-lit brightness.
I watch them from an over-magnified telescope;
youngsters and older
some dripping a scent of latent maturity,
a furtive effort to blend and not offend
the judges
who have sly thoughts
in their searchlights eyes.

The bling,...

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The astral plane above knew no division of east and west,
No barbed-wire border pierced its vast expanse.
The sentry reverted his gaze swiftly back to base,
His visage firmly fixed in the dark shadows of duty.
No stellar...

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She is shadow on their screens
Yet it takes forever for her ghost to fade.
They cannot know her nor
give meaning to her metaphor.
She is alive and sees things clear today-
Further than planes fly,
And she hears her...

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If I am forgotten
I want you to know


as the blinding light of summer
turns to fall, 
a shimmer,
daffodils turn to seed,
drifting on the breeze
I am walking to forget you


another part of me
runs eternity to forgive you,
once...

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Loves Event Horizons (Choka)

Wind that fills your sails.
Sea of madness causing swell.
What is in you that propels.
That surges beneath.
Urge of invisible reach.
Marionettes under string.

We, the puppet pawns.
Those who stand with faces drawn.
Pathetic, prophetic, long.
Beseiged, all...

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Redolence
by Michael R. Burch

Now darkness ponds upon the violet hills;
cicadas sing; the tall elms gently sway;
and night bends near, a deepening shade of gray;
the bass concerto of a bullfrog fills
what silence there once was; globed...

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