Long Shipboard Poems

Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm that wells within?
How can the ocean not be blue,
not buck with the clapboard slap of tide,
the clockwork shock of wave on rock,
the...

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Nucleotidings
by Michael R. Burch

“We will walk taller!” said Gupta,
sorta abrupta,
hand-in-hand with his mom,
eyeing the A-bomb.

“Who needs a mahatma
in the aftermath of NAFTA?
Now, that was a disaster,”
cried glib Punjab.

“After Y2k,
time will spin out of control anyway,”
flamed...

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320 has a great bunch working there
They show a lot pride they really care
I personally don't consider any of this work, to me it's all fun
Sweat already pouring from the Warehouse heat and the morning...

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37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love...

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The Titanic the luxury steamship

Fabulously built and true legend

On her maiden joyous voyage

Crossing the North Atlantic ocean

From the port of Southampton, England

to the new world and New York city

Fate suddenly struck with drama

At the dawn...

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Sarah perfect pirate Princess
Welcome to your shipboard home
Papa pirate holds and keeps you
Safely through the tidal foam

Mama pirate loves you dearly
But she died while giving birth
Flying fish are sent to greet you
Welcoming your time on...

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A love twisted in a high school romance,
Both fixated on puppy dog eyes,
Skipping classes followed by lies,
Predictions to never be seperated,
Only as much as parents tolerated,
They would run if given the chance,

Upon a mellow river...

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A man and woman on either side of a fence
For long strangers, once met by sheer chance
A spark of love was lit in an instance
Its flame was fanned through many a glance
And eventually got blazed...

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Here looking inwards while sitting in wards.
Never bored watching bulletins and staring out the window at the billboards with eyes that's been pulled before and my thoughts still talk forth.
Still taunted and real torn. My...

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To crown the foil of window's questioning disclosure
and an afterthought—the ready sweep of old terrain
that would not seek completing, only slept
in still reflection of the passing hooves
returning from the wars, the lesser footfall
of the deer...

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The Octopi Jars
by Michael R. Burch

Long-vacant eyes
now lodged in clear glass,
a-swim with pale arms
as delicate as angels'...

you are beyond all hope
of salvage now...
and yet I would pause,
no fear!,
to once touch
your arcane beaks...

I, more alien than...

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Stretched Time 

Twenty years! TWENT YEARS! I have lived in this tiny hamlet 
a lifetime…for some. Maybe I have been here hundred years
and the time before I came is shrouded in a mythical dream.
Deep oceans...

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Sea Spray (getting my salt on again)

Shake the cobwebs from my mind
hidden places elusive
hard even for me  to find 

shedding layers, strings unwind
 
Grow me a red beard
shave my head, shipboard doo
thinking clearly, feeling...

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