Long Stockinged Poems

“ANTE BELLUM”


BEIGEBest served where it can’t be seen
On Stirling Silver platters
With redruM narcotics
Delivered by sharp Blood-Red
Well-mannered talons
Strutting in sleek wet rolling tight-skirted
Long French Silk Stockinged legs all the way down to 
Lethal Six Inch stilettos...

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Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't say
if...

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Summer Haze
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in) my mind, and I can't...

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Things

Things . . . 
Things?
Things!
Just ordinary
Things.
Familiar Things.
Everyday Things.
Obvious Things.
Even trivial Things.


Things seen
Front on or 
From an angle.
Things glimpsed.
Things touched.
The smell 
Of Things.
The feel 
Of Things.


Things?
Yes just Things.
But all Things
That remind 
Me of you.
Some Things
Cause a...

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While meditating earlier today,
a flashback leapt
     clear for me to assay,
those ever receding

     early boyhood daze,
     now subsumed within fifty,
plus nine shades of...

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One cold Sunday morning 
I walked across the road
Cold wind striking my cheeks, leaving its bleeding marks
Hands stuffed in my pockets, feet peeping through my socks
I sat on the cold steps outside an old church
I...

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outside
inventoried oval-stoned
cathedrals appealing
chiming crimes of passion
woke citronella
fog
hung in cement-hamocked snowdrifts
cloaked slow on slick-stained windowsides
tenement sheets
with the pomegranate notes
of rhythms unrhymed
   while all the uptown laundromarts
rising up
from insomniac-scrambled sidewalks
corked-copper moon tumbling earthward
like a sweet
sweatshredded...

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Kissed by the rebel mouth of Dionysus

set tight against their fulsome lips;

lapped into shapes by intoxicant tongues,

arms fused in a chain of swaying hips.



Tiptoe this sisterhood of Athena,

this trio in bright synchrony;

blown back on Acropolis...

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Tableaus’


An elderly television speaks to her
in a deaf condominium.
Her garden is a cluster of cobwebs,
it rattles and spins as stiff
as the skeletons of the sun.

Her ears listen to the world
as it ascends into a fairy...

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In 1950 the boy's world
was mostly populated by women.
Men were there as well
but they were like forces of nature
dark, incomprehensible, moving around
making deep sounds.

Women had red painted nails,
they had permed hair,
they had bosoms
smelling of babies.
They...

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In a church where hymns soar high and free,
A mouse embarked on a daring spree,
Up the stockinged leg, it did dare,
Past the congregation's wide-eyed stare.

The preacher's wife felt a tickle, then a squirm,
Her face turned...

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The poor man on the street
With threadbare dress and blistered feet 
'Tis his slogan, he howls,
"I feel hungry, my stomach growls."

The rich man sits to eat
With silken dress and stockinged feet
Tells after his plateful,
"I'm not...

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Papery feathers strain to take wing.
Frills ruffle, mythic masks gnash at the air
beautifully belligerent.

Plucked, they dally daily
between the surfaces of legend,
and the finery of a silk-stockinged
sentience.

Diaphanous stems are necks-laced
below an open-mouth in full quaff
pastel beaks
revealing...

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After twilight around that corner
City Lights show an alternative way
Sipping sour whiskey from chipped cups
In low sweaty cellars where frothy cats play
Shades under tilted black beat berry hats
And Charlie's beat sounds out over his steady...

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Trod softly with stockinged feet
hallways of righteousness 
echo the sound of
mendacity

Ringing hollow on hallowed walls
the brides of yesterday
cry out in mourning
their excuses

Wed in white their vows falling
sweetly through lips tarnished 
with lies overflowing
in laughter

While purity...

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Red bulb
casts sultry shadow
across the 
room 
spilling onto the
street 
air heavy with 
illicit
night scent
rain smog weed and
jack 
clinging 
along for the ride
blurry eyed
distorted reflection dares you
“look up”
shoes
high with painted toes
pulse quickens
stockinged legs the
pathway to shapely...

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Oh, Youth—naïve days lost,
Just learning life
In baseball cleats,
With soccer balls,
Days school bells rang
And girls, girls, girls:
Light lilting laughs,
Smooth budding curves
In sweaters tight,
Lean stockinged legs,
And perfumed air
Enshrouding each …

Oh, Youth—long, restless nights
When life knocked hard—
Those turned-down...

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