Long Shrieks Poems

Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a lozenge of sugar.

When I held you in...

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"Salvage"


Salvage the fixating salvation 
unfurling from the wreckage
of a numb world twisted inside
treasure climbs swimming 
the ladder from the deep of all things 
reaching upwards travelling in a new time
of melting morpheme moments overlapping 
dissolved...

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Salve
by Michael R. Burch

for the victims and survivors of 9-11

The world is unsalvageable ...
but as we lie here
in bed
stricken to the heart by love
despite war’s
flickering images,

sometimes we still touch,

laughing, amazed,
that our flesh
does not despair
of love
as...

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My eyes stare straight,
fixated on something in the distance, 
humming a song that would send chills,
if you ever got the chance to listen.

A padded cell and a straitjacket,
the doctor giving one of his ‘visits,’
his moans...

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A Night On A Wharf

The couple decide to walk. The boardwalk still lit at this late hour guides them. They walk hand in hand,..whispering softly with small talk...solemn.,. lonely , yet together. The walk is...

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These are prophetic poems and apocalyptic poems about the earth, climate change, global warming, extinction events, and mankind's role on an endangered world ...



Polish
by Michael R. Burch

Your fingers end in talons?
the ones you trim to...

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My hair bristled in the crisp breeze
Excitement spreading throughout my body
Even the sudden cold amused my fingertips,
Tingles spreading through my hands and up my arms
Soon I would be there too. . .
In the murky shadows...

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It is so hard to let go of love,
lovingly.

It sharks, 
unpeels more gut more quickly
than reel or reeler ever lost
in all those years of lazy inches
in and out:
casting,
winding in and playing out,
hardly fishing, rarely catching
anything
from...

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Once upon a time, there lived a young woman. She was tall with soft blue eyes and wispy blonde hair. She was married to a nice young man. He was less tall and had almond...

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Groundhog day 2024 or Forty one days since 2023 Winter Solstice

Rather than be a day late
and dollar short, I opted   
to post poem acknowledging
the second of February,
where eponymous groundhog
gets his (most often male)
foretelling...

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I got friggin heebie jeebies

Cuz buzzards circle o'er me
eyeing these lovely bones prithee
id est Roy L. T. Canard, Si
hence impossible mission 
to be lovey dove vee.

Vague remembrances of dream  
which recurred with frequency
transfixed by...

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Sunday February 2nd, 2025 Groundhog Day

Location: Gobbler's Knob in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. First held on February 2, 1887 prognosticating how many more weeks of winter weather without a shadow of a doubt. Aforementioned site chosen for...

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As I pivot to confront my offspring, I anticipate the sight of terror etched in their innocent eyes, a reflected horror that would mirror the abyssal darkness that has long resided within me.

Instead, I am...

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Who am I? I am me, and me is having a little me time
No way!  Five days plus a weekend. 7 days, that’s mine.
It’s not fair. It’s a sin. It’s crazy. No, really honey,...

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Jack and Sam
were two inseparable souls
Best friends tend to be like that,
especially if both were born on the same day
They were two good looking kids,
who liked to play rough and tumble
Didn't mind scraping their knees...

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( Dark Doubles Tribute To Poetic Those Gifts Given By Raven And Master Poe )

(1.)

Under Bright Bloody-Red Midnight Moon, Raven Plays

Yes, those horrific screams, came from below
those frosty chills, born from eerie glow
echoes bouncing off...

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Young James Pruitt was an ordinary boy;
he grew up in an ordinary town.
But set a spell, and I’ll tell a tale
of how some not-so-ordinary things went down.

See, James was a good boy; he did his...

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“Clap your terrible wings, vivacious serpent of old!
Imagine my plight as dangerous as your spite,
Stomp your clawed feet on these prison floors,
Peace shall always follow the sink of your fangs…”

Silenced were the wailing demons round,
Crouched...

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The pale apparition swirls in on night mist.
It envelopes her body, then breathes out its kiss.
Cold to her cheek as the fog to the shore;
She utters a sigh then sleeps deeply once more.
 
She’s new...

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He plays throughout the house at night 
a braille touch for his lack of sight
and dreams of all the crippled things 
with broken legs and shattered wings.

The bandage on his wounded eyes 
will be there...

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I peered deeply into a water trickling  dyke clustered by pale blue and green peebles.
“Oh dear I sometimes dig too deep or maybe not diffidently.
Damon Deep thinker, lost in thought type.”
There is that mind...

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In a deep sleep, I fell upon the fields, tired, rejuvenated, and blessed
Wandering in many a dream

A warm sun creeping from the heavy cream clouds awoke me,
And I felt His presence once again
Sitting up, I...

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Choking noble light held by the hands of Fate                          ...

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Twilight, the frolicking hour of the nocturnal animals.
A curtain of gray melancholy slowly shuts out the sun.
There are two gentle remembering streaks across the sky,
Then all is dark.  The master artist knew what He...

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Fox in the hen house.


There is a farmer, a good man, his name is Jahn. 
He raises livestock chickens, pigs, cows of all sorts and 
of course sheep and goats in many varieties, 
as he...

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