Long Sickled 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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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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Juvenilia: Early Poems IX

These are early poems of mine, written in my teens as a high school student and during my first two years of college.

Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of...

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Back when the sweet summer aromas tease the nose
And soulful beach breezes blow
A civic hurricane of hate grows

With the moon hanging sickled
Over the Eucalyptus leaves
Two hearts die and one soul divides
As the Champion no longer...

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She sits by the stream of consciousness with the echo of silence

Takes her mind into blistering darkness below false reason’s truth

Down by the water of tears she lights a candle in her mind’s storms

Embraces the...

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CRISES IN THE DESERT


written in the effect of religious crisis in Nigeria


Our heart received the message
And tensions well-positioned themselves in the sky.
Heads sought refuge at army barracks;
A world of agony was about to loom


Who cursed...

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mumma's trynna get my head 
out of the mainstream
She said you gotta come on out
despite what you believe
make sense of all these sounds
the screaming while you sleep
can lead you to the ground 
to stand on...

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Down and out brother looking for Job
Will do anything to feed the hungry mob
Suddenly understands the great myth
Like a moth upon his sickled brain there lit
For we who talk of freedom never saw
In anything absolute...

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Go saddle me the black black steed
For I am going on a long long journey
Go wipe away the tears that roll
Across brawny cheeks of gypsie lassie.

Fifteen well made men going on their steeds
To get their...

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Go saddle me the black black steed
For I am going on a long long journey
Go wipe away the tears that roll
Across brawny cheeks of gypsie lassie.

Fifteen well made men going on their steeds
To get their...

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The heart of the mountain burst into the endless sea
And here lies the ash in the salt we are washed
Black and white and the grey air between us

Since time first sounded the gunshot to the...

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the steps i've been chasing get lost in the shadows
but my eyes are adjusting so i know where i won't go
i'm safe over here i'm just picking up the pieces
mother wait over there i'll be...

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-Love left nothing to confess-
On two worn crutches
Our love wobbles in
See her heart how cold she trembles
Wheelchair romance lying unassembled

The problems came when nothing said
Comes home at night and lies in bed
Paranoia hates those wrong...

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If life was dream
Sculpted by death to trace
Within its bound a clarity
Undone by an impassioned heart.

Perhaps death too was a dream
Sculpted by life in fire
On a face sickled in time
To cut the dark night
With scimitar...

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Circler and sharp
Around and jagged
Disjoined in thought
Unfocused in point
Spinning out of control
Broken filaments of twine
Laced locked in gears
It is near the end of time
Nails of glass in iron stone
Refracts the light
Broken; flying fragments of night.
Cycles...

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Trudging forth from benieth the depths.
                      My soul digs through my body, searching for...

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I woke up new and sound,
This freshness I have found,
Resonates from deep within.
And reflects in my rising and sitting.

I'll revel in this bliss,
Not a moment I'll miss,
Walk in the light of my fresh starters,
For nothing...

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Sturdy and firm it stands,
Against season and times,
Against the tide of climes,
In its ambience, there're no sinking sands.

Its strength is unrivalled,
It’s a mystery that is unravelled,
At its summit the eagles dear,
There’s no fear of the...

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....And we knew that life was not our own ?
Kiss the sky her moon she waits; diamond formations
Pearly gates there is no verse to claim this dust: whence borne
Clarity, be visions his burnt ashes their...

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