Long Sheaves Poems

Lady’s Favor
by Michael R. Burch

May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leave us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but her thorn.


The...

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The Field
by Rumi 
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Far beyond sermons of right and wrong there's a sunlit field. 
I'll meet you there. 
When the soul lazes in such lush grass 
the world is too...

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LOVE POEMS V

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch, about life, the dream of love, virtue, a first kiss, a first crush, the birth of a first relationship, the joy of a first love...

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History’s Greatest Miracle Play

Let me tell you a story - Prologue

Actors gather to play their parts
To set the stage – backdrops and props –
In history’s greatest miracle play
Called to speak their lines
On redemption’s stage
In a...

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Birdsong
by Rumi
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Birdsong relieves
my deepest griefs:
now I'm just as ecstatic as they,
but with nothing to say!
Please universe,
rehearse
your poetry
through me!



I choose to love you in silence
by Rumi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I...

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The tears well up, and scarce could she not moan
When father, brother, husband, all have died.
She now has no possessions, neither home,
But travels to a distant, unknown land:
Once so secure, yet now compelled to roam;
Once...

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New Year Poetry

Auld Lange Syne
by Robert Burns
translation by Michael R. Burch 

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And days for which we pine?

For times we shared, my darling,
Days passed,...

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The mystical maid of the seasonal change, in summer darns a
Gown of evergreen, with rose petal blossoms of bows, and leaves
Ribbons woven intertwine through thorns and beauty.
In the rush the colder winds blow at natures...

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Beneath the moon's veil, where stars whisper at the universe's edge,
Thoughts sway in the echoes of riddles uncomprehended.
Here, the sacred message from a journey with the hallucinogen's verse
Tells a tale of how the soul's science...

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Beneath the moon's veil, where stars whisper at the universe's edge,
Thoughts sway in the echoes of riddles uncomprehended.
Here, the sacred message from a journey with the hallucinogen's verse
Tells a tale of how the soul's science...

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Bruce

A lumbering man, 
audibly achily, stepped to the
floor’s center.
Had there been a spotlight, he’d’a shone.

His arms unfurled.
His hips spun.
His soles, silent
as he padded here,
then twisted to place a foot there.

A phoenix swooped, festooned in fire’s...

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lover! lover! lover!

you think human heart 
is an open page, 
a requiem to be read 
at leisure? 
or you think it a black hole,
impenetrable thick darkness
to peep through? 

what is essential to the heart 
is...

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Now Israel loved Joseph more, a son of his old age.
He made for him a splendid coat; his brothers were enraged.
They scarce could civil speak to him; there was no peace, it seemed.
And bad relations...

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Once there was a youthful, bubbly butterfly.
Who loved to fly under the sunlit azure sky.
        Colors of joy reflected from her iridescent wings
     ...

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I was born at the edge of a field 
that captured the shadows at sunset
I was an adolescent, 
when I watched men plant odd, angular rocks
where a  strange, hollow tree sprouted,
maturing unnaturally fast.

I was...

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I was born the eighth among nine siblings .One sister Gladyss Darlene ,seven years older ,died after five days from a condition she would have probably survived had she been born in the hospital.I have...

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Ruth
Whose mudhouse is in silent dale?
Who liveth in lane so desolate?
Is this the house of saddest Ruth?
From madding world thus isolate
 
Oh I've seen her in cornfield
She picks the sheaves of corn with girls
Which gems...

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Tilted nation (the oxymoron of a  leadership)

We have heard great news 
Of a land with pleasant views
Where no stranger will refuse
Now lost like Cinderella's shoes

Its now an Open secret
The  extreme degree of unspoken...

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To be a polylepis tree you gotta know 
You're a polylepis tree & this knowing 
Cements by being a polylepis tree,
Knowing between diagrammatic cracks
Fork'd already info knowing during descent.
Mud run through alpine meadow. Rubberized 
Crunch...

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Hot as hell, emotions fire the flames, 
Nervous about meeting doctors, nurses, 
Curtain separates them from congregation,
The veil is not torn in two, but steamy adulation, 
Courts their friendship sessions to distance, 
Bible fanatic from...

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“Wandering through empty and crowded streets with no destination in sight and sleeping under the sky with the fire burning inside was my life, the life of a vagabond. Survival is a funny game and...

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My Darn Musisk

She wanted her family to
have food throughout the month.
She said often we run out: but feel there is something I can do to help remedy the problem She Knew that substituting meat could...

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Last Trains at the End of an Echo
by Sy Roth

The Conestoga wagons littered the wasteland with their spiny bones
            in search of the comfort...

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A cruel Jack Frost blows icy floss
(in front of spring a’ burstin’)
while shiftin’ sheaves of withered leaves
near freezin’ streams a’ thirstin’.
A pack reviled runs roamin’ wild,
the alpha wolf wakes howlin’
then scents a lean and lonesome...

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