Long Shrink from Poems

It's Halloween!
Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;

if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads

uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;

if birds give...

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Fahr an' Ice
by Michael R. Burch

From what I know of death, I'll side with those
who'd like to have a say in how it goes:
just make mine cool, cool rocks (twice drowned in likker),
and real fahr...

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It's Halloween!
Michael R. Burch

If evening falls
on graveyard walls
far softer than a sigh;

if shadows fly
moon-sickled skies,
while children toss their heads

uneasy in their beds,
beware the witch's eye!

If goblins loom
within the gloom
till playful pups grow terse;

if birds give...

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Vampire Poetry

Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch
 
Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot
 
born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,
 
dreaming of...

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Unquotable quotes: Gals, Dolls, Bitches and Broads – XXXVII

( No aspersions are being cast here, willingly or otherwise, on the fairer, stronger and infinitely more sagacious sex. Even if these over-used words are somewhat overloaded...

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You were my one and only friend,
In a world that judged, that would not bend.
Others would laugh, would point and sneer,
Not knowing the pain, not knowing the fear. 

They mocked my weight, my body, my...

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Belle of the Balls
                               ...

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This doodling Yankee (boot noah dandy) 
doth newt lack chutzpah, 
tries to finagle Fitbit fitting figurative footwear, 
that ideally Fitzhugh 
like custom made glove snugly, 
terrifically, unequivocally matching, 
thence handily solving Finger hut issue, 
when...

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For the accuser of our brothers  [Satan], who accuses them before our God
day and night has been hurled down [to the earth].  They overcame him by the
blood of the Lamb and by the...

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Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch

Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot

born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,

dreaming of blood,
her fangs—white—baring,
revealing her lust,
and...

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Seasons, to the Season

Spring streams, Summer dreams, no longer to be seen
for they have come to be dry, the gold, yellow, brown and red
of what will no longer be able to show it’s faces in...

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Pages turn thin, thin as the plot thickens
Thinning knowledge as ignorance quickens
Spines crack from hunger, hunger for minds
Cracking under pressure of different kinds

Books starve for attention, attention spans wane
Starving for readers in this digital rain
Covers...

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Advent
by
Rick Folker
December, 2017

"... you know the time; it is the hour now for you to awake ... the night is advanced, the day is at hand. Let us throw off the works of darkness and...

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I feel so strange these days
Hollow
Disembowelled
As if the core of me had been ripped out by invisible hands
And scattered to the wind like desert dust
I am like a ghost
I drift – wraith-like – through the...

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One does not have to die to be a hero,
Though many heroes paid the ultimate price,
That is but one among many scenarios,
Of steel, faith, valor and noble sacrifice.

Heroes dwell in neighborhoods across the land,
Who work...

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Riding against the wind, merciless memories nipping at her heels
wearing a Pollyanna mask & a ready laugh to hide the hurt she feels
The stinging words she heard that day hammer her heart like driving rain
she...

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In these parts dead forests run to the center dry
Bed rocks ring hollow in deep basins opened wide
Water no longer meets the cabin door
Since the lake became emptied by some force

Irrigation comes at a cost
The...

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   In the dark corners of their minds,
lies hidden secrets and falsetto, falsety 
and masquerade blind.
Humming to transcendental humanistic deities.
Beating you down to the beat 
of their own drum of a 4th kind.

Ghettos...

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Walk through life with mirth
Laughing, loving, liberating friends and foes
Daring to enliven them as from my favourite firth
I breaststroke ashore and send a rose

To signify my noble intention
Meant to fulfill a wish 
I made to...

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Why do I love Mr Rochester? Why do I think Jane Eyre should have fallen at his feet and worshiped him? Dear reader, it is for these few lines recorded below which he said to...

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(Moses Gava Featuring Kudakwashe Victor Shoko)

Neither did it start yesterday
Nor yesteryear
A scroll further backward
Deep into the historical era 
I could see him crawling 
During those years of polling

They were born egoistical
I wish I were not
Philanthropic,...

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“These are the times that try men’s souls.  The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves...

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I'm young with no identity,
A faceless boy, alone and shy.
To classmates, a nonentity;
My parents fret and wonder why.

I'm part of the unnoticed pack.
I step aside as others pass.
To be alone, I sit in back
And never...

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Her laughter startles the morning air -  
a flock of starlings scattering  
from power lines into  
the cathedral of her collarbones.

She moves through rooms  
unaware of how doorframes  
arch like...

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  I am resigned. 
   I was once full of neoteric life, fresh as morning dew.
  Blank as a hardened sponge waiting for that morning, to 
 soak in all this...

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