Long Stoker Poems

Where Does the Butterfly Go?
by Michael R. Burch

for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba

Where does the butterfly go
when lightning rails,
when thunder howls,
when hailstones scream,
when winter scowls,
when nights compound dark frosts with snow ...
Where...

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Various Heresies 5

Tonight, Let's Remember
by Michael R. Burch

July 7,2007 (7-7-7)

Tonight, let's remember the fond ways
our fingers engendered new methods to praise
the gray at my temples, your thinning hair.
Tonight, let's remember, and let us draw near...

Tonight,...

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Sonnets LXXI-LXXX

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.

Because you...

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                             Brahman Nemesis

    ...

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1.    John Desmond Patrick Keegan
2.    Alfred, Lord Tennyson 
3.    Sally Aline Mae Beller
4.    Charles Edward A. Berry
5.    Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce...

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Poems about Poets IV



The Princess and the Pauper
by Michael R. Burch

for June Kraeft

Here was a woman bright, intent on life,
who did not flinch from Death, but caught his eye
and drew him, powerless, into her spell
of...

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DRACULA AND THE DINNER GUEST

Here lie all parts of my retelling of Dracula, originally written by Bram Stoker. I have never read the book but was drawn into the synopsis that included my favorite dinner,...

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The end of the Pier was shrouded in mist
the Shadows we cast were defining,
We plighted our troth, and then we kissed, 
Neath a full orbed moon that was shining, 

We walked hand in hand to...

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7/20/19

"I'll be your Joker"


Still a registered voter
Signed up to be an organ donor
And finally became a car owner

I rarely use a controller
When it's time, I'll man up and buy a stroller
As well as panels that...

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dracula (the real deal):
you know he’s been rollin’ in his coffin 
since ejacula came & took over 
the whole vampire scene---
as if it wasn’t hard enough to try and live off the blood of
moronic humans
for...

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Caedmon’s Face
by Michael R. Burch

At the monastery of Whitby,
on a day when the sun sank through the sea,
and the gulls shrieked wildly, jubilant, free,

while the wind and Time blew all around,
I paced that dusk-enamored ground
and...

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I worked for Boeing when I first met Fred
Liked him the instant he called me “brain dead”
We were both part of the same office mob
Both engineers fairly new on the job

I was single then, but...

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At Cædmon’s Grave
At Caedmon's Grave
by Michael R. Burch

“Cædmon’s Hymn,” composed at the Monastery of Whitby (a North Yorkshire fishing village), is one of the oldest known poems written in the English language, dating back to...

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Caedmon's Hymn
by Michael R. Burch

At the monastery of Whitby,
on a day when the sun sank through the sea,
and the gulls shrieked wildly, jubilant, free,

while the wind and time blew all around,
I paced those dusk-enamored grounds
and...

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Around midnight, in the library I found myself drawn,
to these shelves haunted still by Poe, Stevenson and King,
as a rare, late October storm brews beyond the pane,
bringing life back to the creatures of Shelley and...

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Three kids to a bed, two beds to a room, three 
rooms crowded with flannel long johns and wool 
socks. If I was lucky enough maybe they had only 
been worn by two or three...

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keepin it false on the sauce y'all
can't stop a bullet...gotta let that brother go
on a midnight train i'm going insane
2 bottles down and i can't feel the rain,the pain,and it's snowing cocaine
and it's wreckin my...

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Feral is this child. Feral is the birth, of such an offspring. Fear in-cased in this crushed offspring. Ceremony of the fear. That I bear my vocals here. Read between the lines. And discover this...

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The carriages sway and how they shudder                  
Rattling behind the one-eyed monster      ...

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The devil's work shall not be
put off till tomorrow

So en-charges many minions
to do his bidding for him

But just who is the charming fella

A shoulder in the shadows

Stoker of the fire a bellow

Or merely a convenient...

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At the Borgo Pass I met a coach and horse,
And the villagers warned me not to go,
They were worried about a supernatural force,
But I had business in Transylvania, though.

The coach rumbled along the Carpathian mountain...

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He cuts the sun with his teeth; therefore, ashes were not at his feet.
He was born by day but his family lived by night.

This was his purpose because of his nocturnal life.
He had the life...

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If you look at ol’ Bram Stoker,
Irish writer of Dracula fame,
it can be quite hard to believe
that any remember his name.
At first just a civil servant,
then he managed a London stage,
doing books for Henry Irving,
a...

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The moon reflected on the sea,
A night more beautiful than day.
I wheezed and struggled up the steps
And looked out over Whitby Bay.

I saw the harbour far below,
And heard the splashing of the waves,
I turned around...

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It's time to clear the highway wrecks
 for the route my parade will take.
I ain't some dead dino,
  I am Tyrant Rex, always on the make.
No more instinct t'extinction,
 listen to "Zarathustra Thus Spake."
I...

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