Long Sorrowing Poems

Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch

In the Whispering Night
by Michael R. Burch

In the whispering night, when the stars bend low
till the hills ignite to a shining flame,
when a shower of meteors streaks the sky
while...

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In It,  I Saw Prometheus Chained And Bound


I was reading Salinger's, "Catcher In The Rye" 
A follow up from Leo Tolsty's,  "War and Peace"
I heard a voice say, "seek wisdom before you die"
Remember...

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The bird wanted to fly

But the wind wanted to blow

“Rest now bird”, said the wind

“You now take it down slow,

And let me flow.”

 

The bird accepted thinking it was a request,

And ignored the proud in...

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Quotes:  -- "  deus ex machina "

""Aristotle praised Euripides, however, for generally ending his plays with bad fortune, which he viewed as correct in tragedy, and somewhat excused the intervention of a deity...

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Mary Elizabeth Frye dedication poem

(3.)
Do Not My Youthful Life Now Mourn

Do not my youthful life now mourn
My lot was set day I was born
I grew to be a healthy lad
This evil world turned my soul...

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There Beyond The Purple Veil, I Hear Her Calling

As sorrowing winds blow, darkness begins falling
There beyond the purple veil, I hear her calling
For the smell of the hillside, the flowers gifting
Nature's streaming beauty, life that’s...

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Walking on air. 
 Thirsting for sorrowing despair 
is the only way I know how to keep you near. 
 My spirit lingers for a moment,
 searching the softly dead silence for the words to...

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The council meets, all hours, to hear old batty dames yell, what a *****,
we don't think she's a good person, because she doesn't look and act like us.

The soldier's hall considers, is it fair to...

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I am a Victim, 
Lured by mascara, and by a pretext piety 
Induced through lust by immoral vermin 

I am a Victim 
Blindfold through cunnings to fest on a plowed field, 
“Whore scammed”, trapped in...

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May 17 Relationship to God Bible Meditations Based on Job 33-35

Key Verse – Job 33:4 The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.

LORD GOD, YOU ARE...

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March 19 Relationship to God Bible Meditations Based on 1Samuel 21-24

Key Verse– 1Samuel 23:4 Then David enquired of the LORD yet again. And the LORD answered him and said, Arise, go down to Keilah; for...

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Expectantly and nervously
I sought an empty chair.
Cousins I hadn’t seen for years
Were already gathered there.

We had come to hear the reading
Of Great Aunt Katie’s final will.
She had been left a wealthy widow 
By my mama’s...

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When I groan in my sin-inflicted pain
Languishing in misery brought by disobedience-stain
Sorrowing midst fleshly triumph so void and vain…
God offers to me His grace I’m unworthy to gain
...putting my life into His peace-quarantining domain!

When I...

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(By the time of the shooting of
"The Misfits", the Miller-Monroe
marriage was in deep trouble.
The Pansy is Montgomery Clift,
The Tusker is John Huston.)

After the Fall

It started as a mental exercise. 
I wondered if an East-Side Jew...

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"ONE

“Hahahahahahahahaha!!!!”

i tick the trickling time of your heart
set in a fast paced, rat raced end of nought
burying your precious life for my rise of worthless death
in traitor riches of an annihilating amassment
and you lose his...

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By the early years of that ancient decade, the 70's,
I'd tired of my obstreperous tomboyish games: 
kickball with the neighbor kids, sledding in the winter, 
desecrating the peacefulness of our street's grave yard 
with our...

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I knew you from a distant dream
The sweet streams cry out
The dumb rocks perspire with dew
My heart flutters in your comely grace
You're more beautiful than the flower
And more sweeter than the nectar's burst
Your scent lingers...

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In Ancient Graveyard Of Hidden Poems, Truth Danced


In ancient graveyard of hidden poems, truth danced
Hiding deep, as romance keeps, a girl romanced
I a young man let verses sing as they pranced
Yet folly was true, gambling...

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Prayer Shawl

When summer nights are christened
With chanting crickets –
Last of their summer season song -
Rolling fields of ripening wheat - east of the mountains -
Revisit my mind;
I picture a young woman – suitcase in hand...

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Do not despise the tears contrite heart                   		         ...

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Back in the mists of time
Were stories sung 
Where minds in thrall by minstrels 
Were held
With tales revealing 
Viscerality and viciousness
The currency of glory and shame.

Who does not marvel at 
Achilles's pride
A ruthless killing machine...

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CONVERSATION IN HEAVEN

He looked down here from heaven and saw the grief and pain
That mankind was enduring because of sin’s black stain.
He saw all of the sorrowing that follows after death
In torments there forever past...

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Sweet are the verses in rhymes that are sung
that genius the mind in history does crown
Blank white pages with divinity and splendor
Stoned face, haunting or dark and yet tender.

With celestial visions charmed as they be
Will...

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Twickenham's green mead is dank and gray
The sun behind the clouds has gone away
In the drying woods a solitary soul, O alone,
So alone, translate grief to incessant moan.
Nature shows its one with us, in all...

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And as I walk behind the crowd
	burden by the memory of my sins
red drops of mud did I see
	of the dust in the blood he shed

and I wonder at the price
	that he paid for my...

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