Long Shafted Poems

Erin, for a girl who embodies Ireland
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...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VII

These are early poems I wrote as a boy and as a teenager.

The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men...

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{Three o'clock on a December afternoon,
the sky is opaque as my nature has stood out, the rain drizzles down my windows and I am distinctly reminded how it once drizzled down my back; the lacquers...

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when Animal Farm is not a feeding manual

and Clockwork Orange strikes at midnight

Dali’s time piece warps under face value

and an eagle-eyed-cuckoo flies over its nest


beneath the cover of cotton candy clouds

she relieves herself into Magritte’s...

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They Called Him Diamond

They called him Diamond still do and his colour is black like 
scorched earth frozen shadows of hell shafted and grafted on 
his scarred broken shoulders deprived of not only his name...

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He was caught in a mine of a mind in reprisals admonitions and self-reproach 

Had been looking for diamonds and gold but then the escape shaft caved in

Gotten shafted and the stake stuck like an...

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Put the headset on
	adjust the boom mic
launch the software
	in the manuscript write

outside of my room
	lit with artificial lights
cold black night sky
	over empty city now

seeking words hard
	filled with many nouns
defining images sharp
	that I would rather not...

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1977 BRIDGE SITE MINER`S BLUES.
Down in old south Brisbane, 
where the derro`s do hang out, 
Where the pipes were stacked 6 high, 
the homeless camped about. 
I was working mate as a miner, 
on a...

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When I awoke this morning
The sunny scape was grand
I realized I'm squatting here 
On someone else's land

Someone who for centuries 
Had roamed this vast terrain
Mostly uninhabited
In sun and wind and rain

Who cherished all its bounty
The...

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Ince St. Child
by Michael R. Burch 
 
When she was a child
in a dark forest of fear,
imagination cast its strange light
into secret places,
scattering traces
of illumination so bright,
years later, she could still find them there,
their light...

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We need to send a message for Washington to hear
We need to make a statement and make it loud and clear
Leave rigs double parked in every town
Come on truckers. Shut it down
Block the highways. Set...

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LOVE
The most powerful force in the universe and not just
 	for the normal reasons people think of.
Love will make a mother, five feet zero pick a three
	thousand pound car off of her child,
Love will allow...

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the very tip of the flame, the

color of shite journalism, “stars

of spectral classes f & g,” a ripe

banana peel, piss full of vitamins

being flushed out, ring around the

collar, chats n’ shafted flickers n’

hammers n’ warblers,...

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The cemetery where my mother lies is overgrown
While my father lies peacefully in perpetual care,
Considering how he treated her when she was alive
It seems this burial arrangement is grossly unfair.

His second wife arranged for him...

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all those town meeting's
where they scream and they yell
it's a perfectly good reaction
from an industry about to fail
this babalon they've built
has stood for so long
it's way too late
for them to notice
something's gone wrong
they built an...

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Mind The Mines

Deep in the pits he digs with no miner’s lamp in hand to lighten the grime
                 ...

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A Flame Once Burned

The new girl gathered her books as the class bell did ring
That’s when I noticed my heart’s spark began to fling
I followed her to physical Ed
I wanted to say hi but my...

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romantic loom spins closure, unexpected
bewildering jumble of unwinding threads
messy break up in a ping pong bounce of accusations
shafted love affair that's also about one's self
complex jigsaw gutted, buried in conjecture
     ...

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How I love this time of year
When Christmas markets beckon!
All major cities have them
And some small towns, too, I reckon.

The festive booths display their wares,
A lot of them hand-crafted,
Their quality assuring you
That no, you won’t...

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INTO YOUR EYES

To look into your eyes                            ...

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If we could pick a cartoon character
To represent the kind of people we are
I think I'd be lightning Mcqueen
because he's my kind of car. 

Powerful and very fast
A paint job of gleaming red
Kind of says...

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I’ve lost my heart among the woods,
Where now it flutters in the drafts
And moves about close secrets kept
Within the floras’ whispered breath.

I know because there glimpses break
Between the bark-skinned living things,
Where there it flows from...

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I sipped blue coffee in the morning,
Eyes twitching against bright screens by nine.
The sound of the ocean from the basement office...
The problem is I'm lost in caves.
I try to connect the strand these days but...

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The scencelessness 
Of unscentered 
Aromatic sounds
Sussurational smoke
Key ness obfuskates
Obvious lee unsanitized
Thoughts – fill blank your
Self less lee shellfish
A float buzzes buy
Bye dove egg sun
Shy lull a buyer 
Was here, lost
What plot there wasn’t
A thing she...

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Light moves, incessantly
Incessantly still, upon observation
Upon observation, the observer is drawn lightly upon the background

Who is the observer, or the observed

Its path is straight and narrow, but fills all
Dark space it does not penetrate, would...

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