Long Splitting Poems

Salvation of a Formalist, an Ode to Entropy
by Michael R. Burch

Entropy?
God's universal decree
That I get to be
Disorderly?
Suddenly
My erstwhile boxed-in verse is free?
Wheeeeee!



Eternal Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm...

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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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Part 1: FORE SIBERIAN FATE

silk wings wet -
angel on the lake.
starlight glitter
separates from

the golden wheat.
her docile hair,
prophecy of ice.

winter pink,
pinched cheeks.
ice skate scrapes -
flecks of flakes.

the snow queen
before her relentless
reign, a pretty thing.

her smile warms
the...

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The greatest performance of my life.  
Howard’s proud piece de resistance award  on Poetry Nook for my magnum opus “Rush Amid The Rapids” in their daily member section.
After endless hours of toil, tribulation,...

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There is always something to write about
I don’t know what you are talking about
There is always something to write about
So take out your pen and spell it out
I was trying to book a ticket for...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch



Desdemona
by Michael R. Burch

Though you possessed the moon and stars,
you are bound to fate and wed to chance.
Your lips deny they crave a kiss;
your feet deny they ache to...

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7. Playing With Fire
My mom IS quite clear on the dangers of fire,
But if boy'S hooked on flame, then it'S hard to obey,
There'S a longing for “MATCH GUN” (6) that most boys acquire,
Small'S the chance...

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I. Sighting

I saw you  
through refracted light-  
a prism of chance  
splitting ordinary into spectrum.  
Wind-tangled hair  
terra cotta and rosemary beneath your nails  
the scent of soil and...

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Tim’s father had been a refugee once he put down his fight and his gun

The story is that he embarked on the very last ship leaving East Prussia

Under siege tanks and bombs from above fireworks...

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Font Din Black

so u real??? 
Warning! The following choppy, batty, 
dopey: elegy = flaky, goofy, history: iffy, 
jumpy, kooky: loopy, matty, nappy, nippy, 
sketchy material prone to find the reader 
dazed and bewildered, yet comfortably...

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In a sudden nodding shift,
I was lifted into the air by the hard wings of the Devil
His putrid stench waking me from what seemed all dream
And upon a balcony of singed vine and blackened soot,
He...

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Please help yarn hexed door neighbor...

Yours truly pinned down by invisible 
vestiges of coronavirus and
getting attacked from angry plague 
of buttons, plus huge spools of yarn
grossly mistook me for human sock 
to seal and line...

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Again the alarm is set.

Strawberries, date squares…Yum, Yum.   

The alarm rings again. The tea party is over.

 She returns to her perch where her wings are immediately clipped by the Bald Eagle who...

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Brains and guts orbit the soul—
that polar star searing in the marrow of being.

I was born somewhere between Einstein’s neurons
Ginsburg beat poetry, the birth of rock and roll, revolution marches,
and the calloused hands of a...

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In the raw expanse of land where rivers sigh,  
marked by the shadows of cats and dogs,  
with each puddle of yellow reminding us  
of lives once lived, hearts bound to the...

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You, Mariana—deepest trench of my knowing  
   I call you by name not to possess it
but because it is the only prayer  
   I have ever known how to...

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NOTE: Some of you seemed to enjoy my stories from the past. Of course, posting this in the story folder is tantamount to burying it six feet under, as you know, so I'm posting it...

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I was born fifty years ago on April 10th 1964
Looking back through the years I began to explore

My mama said when it was time for me to be born
I decided to come early and fast...

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Endless sunflower field 
Rhythmically swaying in the wind
Like lazy ocean wave stretches 
To the distant line of horizon
Touching the edge of the sky
Melting into hot noon brilliance
Boiling all shades of yellow into
One burning brightness of...

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I dread the United States presidential 2024 outcome...

Whereby yours truly presages and doth abhor
nothing short of an imminent civil war
dwarfing insurrection on January 6, 2021
oddly enough even reducing
ordinary decibels to a mute whisper
madding crowd trumpeting...

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In a sense
each person capable of understanding these words
and those who speak diverse languages together
are island nations
splitting in two
by love
or fear
or both.

I have been concerned about the U.S. island of fundamentalist Christians,
formerly part of the...

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Ah... tis nothing greater than...

malfunctioning heater 
on that brisk winter day
recorded here as proof positive
regarding following reasonable rhyme.

While scrolling thru 
poems crafted yesteryear,
I chanced to jog my memory where
there
occurred power outage necessitated 
more than divine...

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Take me to the tombstone 
let me touch the gray stone that stands
where life could not
I will put my face to that touchstone of deaf thunder,
What happened  to your breath baby brother,
what happened in...

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I.
You can always tell by the eyes
When they’re starting to go
You’ll fall for a few of their lies
Before you begin to know
And you will just defy it
(But they know you will never go)

They’ll glide through...

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Shayna Punim - You came a long way baby!

Though negligible communication
now transpires between us
twenty seven years ago
come February fourth,
two thousand and twenty five,
our lives (affecting yours truly
and that of mother, plus Eden
a caring older sister)
irrevocably...

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