Long Squalor Poems

Sonnet LXXXI-LXXXIX

Day, and Night
by Michael R. Burch

The moon exposes pockmarked scars of craters;
her visage, veiled by willows, palely looms.
And we who rise each day to grind a living,
dream each scented night of such perfumes
as drew...

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Poems about Poems V

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

There is a small cleanness about her,
as though she has always just been washed,
and there is a dull obedience to convention
in her accommodating slenderness
as she feints at her salad.

She...

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Already I reached the place where heard the sound
Of falling water in the circle next
Suchlike the rumble done by hives around,

When three spirits together changed their treks,
Running, out of  an horde just passing there
Under...

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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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Inxs of poison from iron maiden scorpion mamma and ac/dc charged aries papa

Although gainfully unemployed 
(fate now finds me receiving 
social security disability – 
for approximately 
the last baker's dozen years -
the yeast divine intercession...

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The reading of Villon poems at West Berlin’s Free University, Winter Semester 1957-58
                      ...

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#1
"It is a sin to kill a Mockingbird.
While playing games with rocks or guns, defray,
them, please, ...shoot old tin cans.  Each whispered song 
from Mockingbirds, can heal the wounds  of the day"

Virtues are...

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New Year's Eve 2022

Yours truly riddled with social anxiety,
hence (billy me) he will idle away
December 31st, 2022 
sequestered (with the missus) 
hunkered down in his mancave
while madding crowd  
entertains reckons partition of time 
into...

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New Year's Eve 2021

December thirty first
two thousand twenty one countdown
will transparently and seamlessly stream into
simultaneously linkedin January first
two thousand and twenty two,
whereby the Ball a geodesic sphere,
12 feet in diameter,
and weighing 11,875 pounds.

The aforementioned Ball...

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In a hellish nightmare pit, soldiers stand...
Along the Western Front's cruel, jagged land,
Where blood and tears paint the earth's sad lore,
They mourn their fallen with bitter taste, hearts torn.

They heeded not the cries of pain,
Nor...

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Gateway town, Mississippi and Missouri river flooding confluence,
with its celebration of manifest destiny, its looming, iconic archway.
Stainless westward marker, its culture flowed southward for influence
within the lawn-jockey, pink flamingo neighborhoods of moral decay. 

T.S, Eliot,...

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(Day 1)

"O Wise Raven, Sage of the Skies, tell me what you have seen from your perch set on high."

"Mortal Man, I feel no compulsion to reveal to you that which I have witnessed with...

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As you peel back one layer you will a bit more of me
Each layer defines parts that the naked eye may not see
The outer layer is tough resistant and seems weather proof
Just one more layer...

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A walk home 
...And there he lie in fetid squalor,
Upon the chaise in vacant parlour...

“What befell this young man?” a query.
A sorrowful tale - tis quite dreary. 
Tricks! The superstitious mind doth play. 
Bested -...

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In the manse market for a preowned spa house

Mine feeble efforts pale in comparison
to a kid scaling El Capitan
of Yosemite National Park,
nevertheless me, a dry witted husband
self emasculated milquetoast
of late ofttimes yawps imprecations
against fickle finger...

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MEMORIES OF A SNATCHED HOMELAND

Traverse of The Masses
Over the years, our land has seen,  
Rulers so brutal, with blood so mean.  
They seized our land by guns and bold  
Bullets and armored...

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Me, an aging baby boomer
long haired pencil necked geek
burning, depleting, using... fossil fuels,
thus a global nonrenewable resource(s)
repentant consumer
admitting heavily trod carbon footprint
additionally deeply enmired
within very late adolescence,

hence I shriek
with utter dismay
starkly aware personal hygiene
suffers direct...

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POEMS ABOUT POOL SHARKS

Fair Game
by Michael R. Burch

At the Tennessee State Fair,
the largest stuffed animals hang tilt-a-whirl over the pool tables
with mocking button eyes,
knowing the playing field is unlevel,
that the rails slant, ever so slightly,...

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POEMS ABOUT POOL SHARKS

Shark
by Michael R. Burch

They are all unknowable,
these rough pale men—
haunting dim pool rooms like shadows,
propped up on bar stools like scarecrows,
nodding and sagging in the fraying light...

I am not of them,
as I...

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They have come for your funeral 
Their looks belie ‘their hearts
 When you needed them 
Their backs turned on you 
Now shamelessly and hypocritically
 They drag those sacrilegious legs 
To   profane your ...

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Fragments


They will be...

you do these kinds of things
can't be helped
imagination Band Aids some call them

I know
you just do
fingers wrapped ‘round cold steel
it's then
it's now
differences slight

like playing marbles
tripod-cradled taws and steelies
"Bombers" "Pots"
"shooters" all
aim straight
roll in the...

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My first poem on the soup:


Honouring the Wartime Dead

They fought with grit to save the nation, 
From poverty, squalor and infidelity, 
And when they marched it was the Nazi’s or them, 
Who would suffice to...

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Quarrel not with me because your ancient longing to right
The ancient damage that deformed you in the night
Has offered you no ego massaging victory in fight
O may champion the spurious claims of others brought to...

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April 5 Relationship to God Bible Meditations Based on 2Kings 5-8

Key Verse –2Kings 5:1 Now Naaman, captain of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master, and honourable, because...

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The Poet Condemned


I have opened my mind and unleashed Pandora’s Box.
My mind is now open, but my will is now lost.
Freedom of the mind; open and clear.
We couldn’t see the demons, but we can feel...

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