Long Slurped Poems

Sonnets XC-XCVII

Artificial Smile
by Michael R. Burch

I’m waiting for my artificial teeth
to stretch belief, to hollow out the cob
of zealous righteousness, to grasp life’s stub
between clenched molars, and yank out the grief.

Mine must be art-official?zenlike Art?
a...

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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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Five rings for fifty-one again and once more winning brings,
another pot of loser’s beer for throwing rubber rings.
That’s twenty-seven ‘freebies’ in a row, so by now it looks
like I’m the bloke who changed the record...

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[My recent poem ‘The Dimly Lit House’ received a
Comment from Charles Messina that it could be a Tom and 
Jerry episode… what can I say? Something went ‘Ping!’]

       ...

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When I was little, my stepfather and I would be outside, coloring the driveway with chalk or throwing a frisbee and he’d stop and say, “I’m gonna go stir your mama up.”

He’d go in the...

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Starched tears stream, crust
over like a spoiled sweet on 
pink cheeks, flushed,
from suffocated time,
gasping for air,
I shatter at his words like brittle rust,
crushed to dust, 
mind meek.

Fifth time this week.
Shallow breaths to Karma Police,
struggle to...

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An old Point Man phoned, “Do ya think you can do it?.  
Driving doggies and cows from the flanks of Mt. Stewart?"
Fattened on grass for a year they had stayed. 
“Move a river of...

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Oh my goodness!

I was just thinking about Erik Erikson,
psychoanalyst and essayist,
and his social analysis thing
about the U.S.
stuck in perpetual competitive
in-grown
culture-ungrown adolescence.

And Erikson suddenly reminded me of one of my dreams last night.

When The Donald
and a...

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Five-and-Dime Store
                    by Odin Roark

Maybe I remember ‘cause…

Everyday was a holiday
At Woolworth’s Five-and-Dime store.
Colored things were...

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Tim had all the necessary ingredients right next to his ancient burner


Shark teeth dangling from a sunken necklace at the cutting edge but

The amulet had turned into chains and shackles grinding the chef’s mind

A lost...

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I’m Onomato-pea-a
The window is my home.
I love the sounds of cooking
At day, at dusk, and dawn.

Mom clomps into the room
And clicks on every light
The curtain whooshes open,
I wake up, “No more night!”

Drawers squeak, cabinets creak
Bread...

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Multihued lights flash fervently,
On naked illusion draped eyes zealously,
All shut and secured to colored vision,
Egoist blurry brain images, these are all in an intangible prison.

Some call me quirk, some foible, but all refer me to...

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Turbulant radient red sky with sheet swirl mashed potato
cloud mush peered lazily through a curious brown
haze of dirty armpit fizz, enlisted somewhere
bewteen a prebeginning solar start dot deposit burst peak
and a futuristic nuclear waste singulsr...

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It started when I saw you
Those seductive eyes
Those luscious lips
That pretty little smile...
Those tasty looking hips...
I wanted to kiss you,
I wanted to taste you...
I wanted your body on top of mine...
I couldn't resist you...
The way...

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A sweet fragrance pierced the air
As I hold on to this moment.
Awaking at last to lonesome bedsheets
As I hear movement from within the kitchen. 

I arise to a foggy atmosphere
being probed by lucid sun beams
Flowing...

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THE 12 SPIRIT WITCHES OF SHUDDER VIEW MIST   2019/01/20

Was the address given to us, and was betwixt
Tall trees whose branch’s looked like shadows
Lightening made them look like monsters affixed,
Hanging dead, and the immediate...

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He was big, rough, burly, with tattoos everywhere you could see.
Up both arms, down his neck; a big boy, weighted two thirty-three.
I tried not to notice him, for I am afraid of bikers this size.
When...

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The Ruba’iyat of Créteil Lake – Part Twenty-Four

A chill-marrow scowling wind rushed up abysms of the South
Rumpled Lady Lake’s sparse dripping tresses splashing up Her mouth
Gushing fountain raced down the waterfall crumpling eye-lashes
And slurped the...

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Two Dogs at the Gateway
By Sy Roth


They slurped their saliva, 
huge globs,
big, barking mouthfuls 
dripping from their jowls like milky icicles 

Teeth-bared lips,
They guarded the gateway.
Pleased by their vacated spittle,
their noses now sniffed the air,...

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I've slurped chili from border-to-border and betwixt the roilin' seas,
In fancy five-star establishments and greasy spoon eateries.
I've sampled some that has caused anxious gastrointestinal uproar,
But I'm a glutton for the stuff and always go back...

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Water is uniquely ancient, yet it hasn’t aged a day.
It’s older than Dr. Leakey’s bones. 
Older than Olduvai Gorge.
Water is older than life itself,
Unaltered by evolution’s chaotic ebb and flow.
Undiminished, though redistributed,
Surviving every mass extinction,
While...

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The last few years Thanksgiving was a lot of turkey for the two of us.
Our children usually have other plans. Our friends do too.
This year I decided no more turkey, I wanted beef. I began...

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Boldly you held out your hand with the sweetest of treats
Graciously I lapped from your palm
Unsuspecting of the one hidden behind your back

Swiftly just before that hand was cleaned
You’d had me snared and tied to...

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My dog is named Scrap
He drank beer on tap
Slurped, burped, fell over and napped
No fault of my own but I took the rap. 

The bar tab was forty bucks plus a tip
Appetizing jerky tips, and...

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The mean old housecat has bulgy eyes
when she looks at us in our fish bowl
Oh, how much we've come to despise
that big mouth of hers, the black hole

Poised to pounce with sharpened claws
She's taking jabs...

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