Long Signals Poems

“Son”...”say goodnight to grandpa”

Spurred by mother dearest 
as well as other politesse
drummed into her second born
fobbing blandishments as incentive
tumbled off fingers of prodigal son
tripped wordsmith to splutter forth
forthwith the following lines.

Back in the day 
quaint...

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"Who Put Luebella down the Wych Elm?"

There are rumours
about me, some 
come seeking me
with their geiger counters
and ouji boards
with their heart 
shaped planchettes

unanswered questions
in the woods, crackling
within the sounds of leaves
invisible dead things speaking 
underfoot...

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Villanelles

The villanelle is a poetic form based on repetition, with a double refrain. 



Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day, 
with the...

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Sonnets XVII-XXIV

Discrimination
by Michael R. Burch

The meter I had sought to find, perplexed,
was ripped from books of "verse" that read like prose.
I found it in sheet music, in long rows
of hologramic CDs, in sad wrecks
of long-forgotten...

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Rondels, Roundels and Rondeaux

These are poetic forms similar to villanelles, with refrains (repeated lines) and sometimes double refrains.



Rondel: Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot...

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Pain settles in quite instantly your senses 
are totally unprepared for this graveness
the notion to sleep sets in like an energetic 
twilight phase the injury abruptly strangles 
thought my ears are always ringing with this...

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~ Worship And Praise   ~ 
( Pantoum ) 
 

~O~


Worship God, pray each day, all way. 
Keep the Lord always in my life. 
Surely follow Him every day. 
Worship and Praise, in good...

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Joe: "It's 9 a.m., here in Gotham and my partner, Mike and I, have been here since 7 a.m., and we also passed a cow coming over here!"
Mike: "That was no cow sir just a...

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Unidentified extraterrestrial(s) willingly abducted me

As a divergence 
from the apocalyptical, dialectical, 
geomorphological, judgmatical, 
metaphorical, philosophical...,
I share an out of this 
(webbed wide) world,
light hearted anecdote 
ye may find far fetched.

Believe me you,
an unspecified number of...

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"Backhand"



You have turned me
inside out, cut open
like a tennis ball
I used to beat backhand
along with the racket
hard against the garage wall

To make sense of it all
as a child, the grief stolen
all too swiftly and replaced...

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(continued from A Year Of Months (January-June)
https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/heroic_crown_of_sonnets_-_part_one_772928


A Year Of Months (July-December)

8. July

July now follows summer's song of June;
with sun ablaze, her days are humid, warm.
Great time to languish in the afternoon,
and later, watch an evening...

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The photograph that Tim had shown me a few hours earlier certainly did not do it justice.
From what I could see it was a large triangular shape on three legs which were all at a...

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Saturday, September 23, 2023  

Coincides with first day of fall
and Autumnal equinox for said year,
where colorful splash kindled like tinder.

After I riff flecked about thee August
Autumn Equinox 2023,
this seasonal polymath teached you 
fall Equinox...

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[ ... story with context, a plausible universe with top and bottom
  a coat of cosmos covering
  over a subterranean protoverse of potential fields
  a quantum cellar creating
  the very big...

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Date:      August   2051

The 3rd of August  2 morning time.
Holly had labor signals. Her and 
Molly's accommodations were now adjacent. She buzzed the com. Nobody
Answered. She struggled to...

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Step Forward McCarthy vs. Hellman 

What is this The Digital Crucible of Truth?

On a stage of scrutiny,  
          titans c l a s h— ...

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"Barefoot in the Bushfires of the Vanities"



Heat rises slowly to rapture flames licking and teasing
Blue Ghostgums to stretch and crack wide open
as Fire spreads molten sweet sap bleeding burgundy all over 
amber gold wild bush...

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Grounded by severe anxiety disorder while the middle east desperately wants you to expose the yellow wires connected to your unborn child that wire is being monitored by the federal bureau of investigation watching your...

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Unidentified flying object abducted yours truly,... 

a willing experimental subject 
to escape untenable married life.

Upon falling into a deep slumber, 
the following subconscious 
somnambulant scenario arose 
allowing, enabling, and providing 
temporary alleviation from 
outa harried...

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Your compassion reveals
mutual biological interests,
a powerful tool
for focusing fertile thoughts
and pent-up feelings

My passion regenerates
articulates
seeks to accurately label
read and process,
attend to your best nonviolent communications,
nonverbally hummed flirtations
of this
our potentially significant
Otherness.

These compassion communications,
positions,
postures,
poses,
plays,
prances and dances and trances,

Intuited...

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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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Old Man Winter now flagging, and slip sliding along...

as his stronghold diminishes.

Signals, triggers, and ushers kickstarting debut
of demure "Flora" who slowly but surely attempts
to reveal her true colors in fits and starts,
nevertheless, she displays skittishness,
when...

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Date:  April  4,  2051

Dolly had Molly and Holly delayed
In the dinning area while she secured 
Any loose ends. They had most of
The assemblages in place. The aisle
The flowers? Delilah had questions 
"Mommy...

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The Bedouins, bequeathed with the sacred beauty of paradise harsh,
trusted guardians of jealous gorges and gifted groves
lead me from the Wadi Musa to the humble ingress of Petra,
saying with thrill, the Jin of your Jihad...

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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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