Long Squelch Poems

If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.
-Michael R. Burch

*

Willy Nilly
Michael R. Burch

Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?

Isn’t it silly, Willy...

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Willy Nilly
by Michael R. Burch

for the Demiurge aka Yahweh and Jehovah 

Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
You made the stallion,
you made the filly,
and now they sleep
in the dark earth, stilly.
Isn’t it silly, Willy Nilly?
 
Isn’t it...

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For All That I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch

For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...
and yet I hold her close within my thought:
I feel the burnished weight...

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Enough!
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that I don’t want to die;
I shall be glad to go.
Enough of diabetes pie,
and eating sickly crow!
Enough of win and place and show.
Enough of endless woe!

Enough of suffering and vice!
I’ve...

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Self destructive wickedness arrested, convicted, and gaoled...

with kidnapping little boy 
ordered to suffer
life sentence without parole.

The deadly scourge of  
one obsessive/compulsive disorder
nearly left me starving to death.

Anorexia nervosa absent bulimia 
nadir of onset 
diagnoses...

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Mine psyche riddled with dybbuk
Thru emerging adulthood awareness awoke
within noggin of average baby boomer bloke
catastrophization toward risk taking I evoke
positive growth experiences throughout vast
number of orbitz around sun never kickstarted,
nor linkedin with potential livingsocial folk,
thus...

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Mine psyche riddled with dybbuk

Thru emerging adulthood awareness awoke
within noggin of average baby boomer bloke
catastrophization toward risk taking I evoke
positive growth experiences throughout vast
number of orbitz around sun never kickstarted,
nor linkedin with potential livingsocial folk,
thus...

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Mine psyche riddled with dybbuk - haint no joke

Thru emerging adulthood awareness awoke
within noggin of average baby boomer bloke
catastrophization toward risk taking I evoke
positive growth experiences throughout vast
number of orbitz around sun never kickstarted
nor linkedin...

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When in a jam, I try to preserve meditative trance

Synonymous with light hypnotic mode
inhaling and exhaling diffusing anger
lest mine noggin would explode
rhythmic breaths flowed
sustained me red nose (think Rudolph) glowed.

Holistic approach to derive peace of...

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Wait until you meet Lucinda Shaw
Curious how many said this to me.
People reported her with a bit of awe,
Forecasting maybe I would fully see.
Depth of her soul which was unusually old.
I did too. She was...

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Pointed Art
Michael R. Burch

The point of art is that
there is no point.
A grinning, quick-dissolving cat
from Cheshire
must have told you that.

The point of art is this—
the hiss
of Cupid’s bright bolt, should it miss,
is bliss
compared to Truth’s...

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This the story of Gustybot Melly
His really small nose and his very large belly
He'd finished the biscuits, the cake and the jelly
And munched all the crisps like the ones on the telly

And when he was...

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Why I keep a low profile i.e. namely remain invisible

Alternately titled -
dear readers ye each saddled as exegete
to make sense little known excerpt
referencing obscure passage printed
calligraphy style groovy and neat

found scrawled in book of Matthew
which...

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If raindrops rise in leu of fall
would you seek the meaning overall?
Would spectacles endow with a clarity of fog
would you follow tangled lines of a rearward call?

Inevitable advance to stepping backwards
and dreams which mock to...

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Loneliness

He sits at the table and watches the shoppers walk by
There aren’t many seats here, his half-hour limit’s long past
As one by one each worker chats with him; they know this guy
He offers them something...

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Mideast Peace: Oxymoron

Though descendent of Jews,
I feel boggled at the brutal,
nasty and wanton war between
Israelis and Palestinians.

Many innocent victims
bred to know and hate their enemy
impossible mission
to reconcile one Semitic
group of peoples from another.

The bloody English
begat...

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Slipping gently towards entropy,
Ownership with an apostrophe.
Braid the loose frays of sanity
Till something true finally answers me.

Troops are marching over many lands,
Tagged cornflower blue--a worldwide brand.
Don't speak out or you will be banned,
Towers implode just...

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Last Will and Testament

I think ?, I have known all along
that one day, you would be gone,
as the days – for me – where few,
not much left – for me – from you.

Everything I have...

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Dragon! Dragon! … He’s in the air… There’s trouble on the way.
Duck your head, and keep on running… He’s the UPS Guy, today!
Now, Federal laws may be broken, as a few packages: well… go up...

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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 did not know suffering 
I knew not pain
I knew nothing of love
Until you came into my desperate life

You came and conquered my heart; I fell hard
But soon after I found lonely nights without you
Your...

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“Let me be strong, for to be anything else is to languish in the abyss of compromise and to descend to places of impoverishment so destitute that they will squelch my soul and crush my...

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Pennilessness shadows black
unemployment endless track
rails tie-er less lee when dumbly staring
overdrawn account issues 
   another clattering smack.

Income pleat undergraduate degree
contributed to the role of a sporadic employee
time to acquire handy dandy blues clues...

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She peeks 
around a corner 
to spit a seed at me  in my dreams  
then turns her head  
pretending not to know 
of it
sometimes she 
is in the body of  
a...

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A Greek mythological classical character chosen,
Medusa with her snake hair and stone stare, a frozen
Look turning people to stone, originally a vision of beauty,
A woman of erotic desire, who inflicted unimaginable cruelty,
Her destiny to become...

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