Long Sears Poems

Let Me Give Her Diamonds
by Michael R. Burch

Let me give her diamonds
for my heart's
sharp edges.

Let me give her roses
for my soul's
thorn.

Let me give her solace
for my words
of treason.

Let the flowering of love
outlast a winter
season.

Let me...

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In a matter of months, we would experience the greatest economic                        ...

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Clarence Goddard, Harvey Bell, Virgil Barnes and I met for coffee every day for close to forty years.
I was a school janitor...Virgil was a farmer...Harvey ran the lumber yard, and... Clarence managed Sears.

We always met...

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Tragic, When Innocence Was Lost And Love Fled
(Youth, Dreams And Reality Series) poem number 1)

 
Like lake June swans once so were she and I
Passionate romance money cannot buy
Coupled and in heart's fervor we stood
Giving...

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MY BUCKET LIST

Years and years ago, I made a bucket list.
I looked everywhere and could not find it.
I don’t remember everything I listed,
so it’s time for a new one to be created
or just to go...

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The “Equalizer”                          



Late last night, at Billy-Bob’s, this little dude...

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I look up at the ebony, starlit sky…I’m gravity-bound…I’m awestruck 
& I don’t know why I feel stuck in place…I’m searching all over the place…the 
only thing I seek and prize is your striking face…but,...

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On wooden cross, The Christ was nailed;
His Spirit tossed, painful death sailed...

The centurion's lance pierced His side;
In sure fashion, blood water strides.

The Christ was gone from the grim earth;
Limp body forlorn waiting new birth.

His empty...

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You came into her house through the kitchen. 
The big door in from the front porch
Hadn't been used for years;
Furniture stood hard against it.
A knock at the front door meant a stranger.

Aunt Celesta makes a...

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My First poem posted here May 2007 was  an enigmatic Lanterne

Viduage

Tall
nettles-
the dutch hoe
rusting in the
shed.

My First ekphrasis (poem no 2 here ) BELLA

Bella

He
opened
the window-
in streamed his first
love
with
flowers,
dressed
in white-
she haunted his
art.

An Ekphrasis in lanterne  sequence on Marc Chagall

MY FIRST POEM I EVER WROTE poem no 3 here. a favoured form  AN ALLITERATION

Connections
Confront,clash,collide
COMBAT !
Cold shoulder,chill,cool
CUT-OFF !
Cry,crave,collect
CALL-ON !
Constant,compassion,consider
CHARITY !
Confer,commune,converse
COMMUNICATE !
Convene,concert,consensus
CONCORD !
COVENANT ! CHRIST ! CHURCH !

MY FIRST IMAGIST POEM -REFLECTIONS

Reflections

Deep into the pool
A blue moon,ephemeral,
Below white-coated peaks,
Bleak and surreal,
The transient image too soon
Dissolves,and ripples into space,
As water though my grasp.

MY FIRST CINQUAIN (after Adelaide Crapsey)

Long days
Of August sun
Where nature blinks and shrinks
The dying grass,yellowed in sleep-
Held fast

MY FIRST HIKU

On the wind,a bell
Muffled from across the square
Raindrops fill the air

MY FIRST TANKA- BREAKING UP

apart again
crestfallen within
my longing persists-
we dis-engage
into parallel lives

FIRST FOOTLE Jan 2009 (Plural footles never really appealed- I stil!l prefer my original creation)

Footle-Bonnie & Clyde

too snide

both died

MY FIRST(& Only PRIZE WINNER POEM )(75$ iN THOSE Soup  DAYS OF 2007)

ELEVEN :ELEVEN: ELEVEN

Chill breath of autumn
Sears the poppy scarlet red,
On his memory'd cenotaph.

Tears trickle in the furrowed
Faces of young comrades
.....now long dead

MY FIRST OPEN FORM

CONCEPTION
Standing
as in a dream
            bemused
in my private world
alone

and yet surrounded
by others

                thoughts
read
digested
and considered


waiting
listening then
             writing
my verse
I awake,content

until the next
time

( Year Posted 2012) OPEN VERSE using spaces&breaks/no grammatical symbols /relying on 'the one breath limitation'/this intuitive...

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These are poems about sinking, poems about drowning, poems about loss, and poems about new discoveries we sometimes make while feeling lost...



Sinking
by Michael R. Burch

for Virginia Woolf

Weigh me down with stones…
fill all the pockets of...

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Mirror
by Kajal Ahmad, a Kurdish poet
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

My era's obscuring mirror
shattered
because it magnified the small
and made the great seem insignificant.
Dictators and monsters filled its contours.
Now when I breathe
its jagged shards pierce my...

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What The Roses Don’t Say
by Michael R. Burch

Oblivious to love, the roses bloom
and never touch ... They gather calm and still
to watch the busy insects swarm their leaves ...

They sway, bemused ... till rain falls...

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The lunch dishes were still in the sink
We were having cans of beer to drink

Then came the sound we did abhor
The opening of an automobile door

“Just peek and see who’s out there.
For any visitors, I...

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One day it’s going to happen, just you wait and see, there will be a day that you will run into me unexpectantly
And when I am standing there in front of you with that awkward...

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Departing Sacramento, Ca. just past 7:00 AM PT on a nice Saturday morning, we headed for Chicago. All is going well as we take off, as the pilot soon announces that we will ascend up...

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Volcanic rage erupts from deep within – 
No matter where or when, it roars and spits. 
Shattered mirror reflecting my every flaw – 
Bleeding shards of glass slice through my skin.

The past sears me like...

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It's a hanging day in Wolf City, Wyoming, 1894.
They're gonna drop Cat Ballou through the gallows' floor.
Cat your time has come as you stand on the brink.
It's sure making you think
about your life of sin.
Why...

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I descended the wretched trench of lies with willing defeat,
My heart severed too many times to ever even care
Of what horrors lay beneath

I face the unknown with a corrupt thirst
I have seen these familiar twisted...

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My desire is boiling molten lava
it erupts when the taste
of your name slips through my thoughts
It is contrary to what I have believed
I have been struck by its arrow
and the curse    ...

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Every friggin day
mother hen runs amuck,
while all chicken's
beady eyes appear awestruck
drawing particular
agitation, irritation, perturbation...

of Punxsutawney (Doctor) Phil
(well grounded) woodchuck,
the latter glaring at henpecked
yours truly rifled
tail feathered rooster,
whether communicating 

nonverbal sympathy
towards me, a garden variety
Gallus gallus...

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(okay, yukon axe me whatsapp pinning, 
     though beep pre spired, cuz mess sigh key
     threads experience didst rub burr raw 
     as...

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Blueberry and cherry, and home-made apple pie,
Country girls bake them, the apple of your eye;
Each pie’s got a number—which one will you choose?
Look at all those country girls, looking right at you.

It’s a Pie-Supper Summer,...

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"Moonspinner Seer" 

Moments we dance
you and I 
alone 

sensing 
all the words 
gone

soul naked
we spin 
sad worlds away 

bad spells 
in a small ocean 
buried, never forgotten

casting pearls 
luminescent 
into the trapping net

ghosts in the...

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Twas the night before Christmas - came like a flash,
Mob of gingerbread reindeer prodding elves for cache.

The Clausman reigning, doling out orders this stint.
Lady of his, keeps his tongue supplied with peppermints.

The vainglorious list of...

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