Long Staccato Poems

The emotional, mental and spiritual fallout courtesy Colt Gray

Apalachee High School,
located in Winder, Georgia
witnessed an active shooter,
whereby the alleged lone gunman
(actually just a teenager of fourteen years)
killed four people and injured nine more
the latter hospitalized with...

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"As other spirits sail on music, mine, oh my love, swim on your perfume." Charles Baudelaire

"Sometimes you find an old bottle from which the soul returns." 
Charles Baudelaire

"Smell is a Word. Perfume is Literature."

"There are...

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State of the Art (III)

These are my "ars poetica" poems: the ones about the art and craft of writing poetry in a modern world that doesn't always recognize the artists or their work. 



Come Down
by...

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Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There...

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Sonnets LXI-LXX

Erin
by Michael R. Burch

All that’s left of Ireland is her hair?
bright carrot?and her milkmaid-pallid skin,

her brilliant air of cavalier despair,
her train of children?some conceived in sin,

the others to avoid it. For nowhere
is evidence of...

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Poems about Poems IV

The Toast
by Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and gray,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak...

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Raid versus woe

Black flag(s) show up
on social media platforms
when potential homicidal maniac(s)
communicate(s) intent to strike
with ambush and ready
read - able, eager, and willing
to embark upon murderous rampage.

Prospective killer armed to the teeth
usually a young bucking...

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Poems about Poets VII

Gallant Knight
by Michael R. Burch

for Alfred Dorn and Anita Dorn

Till you rest with your beautiful Anita,
rouse yourself, Poet; rouse and write.
The world is not ready for your departure,
Gallant Knight.

Teach us to sing...

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Digital Creationism
(Man 0, God 1)         

Part 1: Binary God
For men it seems God is a binary function
And like ones and zeros 'HE IS ON or 'he's off.'
Is...

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Remorseless sweaty palms

despite being prescribed glycopyrrolate.

Though the angst riddled psyche of mine crafted youth, long since receded, ebbed in the past, infringement, impingement, and indecent wracking wrath of mental illness, that even as a middle...

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The boss aka Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen 
born at Monmouth Medical Center 
in Long Branch, New Jersey, 
on September 23, 1949. 

His nationalities include hodgepodge 
of Dutch, Irish, and...

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Deep in a silva of the Emerald Isle there hides a peculiar coppice,
Shaped in a spiral labyrinth which is seen only on the summer solstice. 

As the sun rises to its highest of tides and...

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"Their World"

Of course, there was no re-assurance from them that they would respond to the message I had sent. Morning had arrived. 

The day had commenced as any other, unravelling out of bed, in itself...

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THE CLICHE SUBJECT MATTER
I tried to study you best way I could without weighing my infatuation
And before I knew it I was knee deep in a classless obsession
I added you to my thinking pattern, all...

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(Apropos of Black Poetic Griots)

We may not be deemed apostolic recorders
But we poets, guided with divine wisdom, are
The lay scribes thereof in the chronicling of
Our life’s sojourn in the shadowing times
we spend here on this...

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“Die Another Day”


“Your mission, should you so deem it,
Is to infiltrate ALL Fluff Clusters in K.A.O.S. Headquarters
And bloody well steam it!”


“The Place is a hazardous mess of a trap
Over run with Double Agents, ulterior motives
Amorous...

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still the climbing green lianoid lass


her tender tendrils torn  


massive metal lying like a cutlass


in her lap forlorn


                ...

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It said "Listen now and listen well, you who looks upon what's mine:
The ground between the aureole round the ring of tree and vine.

You look upon a fairy ring and stand before it in this...

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Unsolved criminal mystery...modest prevarication

Found yours truly
a grateful dead head
convenient scapegoat dejure
Norristown police officers
fingerprinted me for 
casual postal employment
linked to vicious brutal crime
someone else who shared 
identical name and fingerprints as mine
the latter of corpse far...

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IV.
Fronds whipped their faces, they dashed through the trees,
more shrill, raspy growls rose behind them,
creatures crashed through forest, giving them chase,
they weren’t that fast, but came relentlessly.

Like piranhas swarming, they just appeared,
in Zack’s peripheral vision...

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Heaven’s chill clouds hide blazing stellar light.
Winter wet with fresh white flakes falls tonight.
A morose man maunders at his baby grand, 
Keys awaiting the touch of bony hands.

A sunlit melody from two souls’ springs
With a...

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this cautious man (bobby jean) born in the u.s.a.
grownin’ up in the badlands of atlantic city
bonded with blood brothers 
felt born to run along backstreets
in brilliant disguise that did cover me
frequently blinded by the light
of...

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Four palms, one taller, the other three measure the same.
Heavily anchored in sand, all are vertical climbers of this azure sky.
Eight new fronds per palm, the older ones neatly trimmed by man.
No cocoanuts anywhere to...

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She sat at her table
And had a sip of her lemonade
Wishing she could be out there dancing
How she loved to dance
Her brother and his wife 
Were busy chatting with some friends
Who had stopped at the...

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How do people do it?
For that matter, how do I pull it off?
Sitting in front of the computer for so many hours,
body compressed into a computer chair.
Feel a whole decade older than I actually am-
aching...

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