Long Straight Poems

For ten months now I’ve brooded over coming second place
in the pickle section deeming, it no less than a disgrace.
It was written plain and simple, so there can be no excuse,
that the pickles in this...

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When I was a child
Everything was magical
Full of mystery and the unknown
I read hundreds of books
The library my haven
My home
Hours upon hours
Night and day
I read and got lost in text
They supplied me with adventures
Secret journeys
Fun...

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They were gambling in front of the house.
Manservants and pages bustled about
Serving Suitors who just curse and carouse.
Few mix wine with water. I heard one shout,
"Clean down the tables with wet sponges! Rouse
Yourselves! And when...

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It may have been the devil himself who prompted the kids in my schoolyard back in 1947 to chant "Patsy Foley's roly-poly from eating too much ravioli."

At first, no one could remember who started the...

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{intro}
(Whisper) mmmmhmmm
Turn me on by your tranquil, no-drama-no-trauma tune
It will be noon soon,
My sweet maroon moon
Don't panic, maniac of mine...you're swimming in your lament lagoon 
Ohhhhh...
Please
Hear me out 
At ease,
I hear your victory shout!!!

Ooooo I-I-I-I...

{verse...

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Within


Play Slipknot’s ‘Snuff’ song four times and use these lyrics:
(Do not use the official video clip. It has more than just the song.)


I still feel your pain within my skin…


Ripping out my heart again,
So I...

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I have been reluctant to pen this verse 
Because I don't understand what it was all about
I have been reluctant to pen this verse
Because I don't want anyone to  get hurt
Morning comes and evening...

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I heard you calling my name in an echoing whisper 
I saw a bird take wing in the whirling wind of disaster 
I put my weary head on your broad shoulders
The moment we touched, I...

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Family Poems

Mother's Smile
by Michael R. Burch

There never was a fonder smile
than mother's smile, no softer touch
than mother's touch. So sleep awhile
and know she loves you more than "much."

So more than "much, " much more than...

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My husband and I always enjoy visiting
GrandMother Eartha
on Mother's Day

She often shares
last night's dreams,
which too often follow rather disturbing peak experience themes

Because,
you know,
or maybe not because,
how would I know?

Dreams about Her Straight White AlphaMale trauma
were...

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Limericks VII - Naughty, Bawdy, Risque, Absurd

There continue to be modern sequels of the famous "Nantucket" limericks, including this bawdy one of mine:

There was a lewd whore from Nantucket
who intended to pee in a bucket;
but...

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What fills your goals, son?

I told you!
Need to get my car rolling [life rolling, love rolling]
yesterday,
if not today...

If I may interrupt
to process mindful resilience
for a bit...

Let me ask again:
Noticing you are concerned about long-winded
and -winding
and...

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Fate decreed sexting/texting while married abominable

Therefore karma caught up to me big time
and delivered yours truly sent to purgatory
(figurative speaking) by casting a spell,
whereby the government issued Safelink
Tracfone got permanently disabled
and all the data
(including contact...

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Poems about Children


The Desk
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

There is a child I used to know
who sat, perhaps, at this same desk
where you sit now, and made a mess
of things sometimes.I wonder how
he learned at all...

He...

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Limericks I - Relatives and Relativity

The Cosmological Constant
by Michael R. Burch

Einstein, the frizzy-haired,
said E equals MC squared.
Thus all mass decreases
as activity ceases?
Not my mass, my a$$ declared!


A$$-tronomical
by Michael R. Burch

Relativity, the theorists’ creed,
says mass increases...

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Too many times sadly
too seldom gladly
I must learn to trust
Earth's future more

Both Father Sun's timeless 
rounds of enlightenment
and Mother Earth's
codependent rhythms
regenerating rich 
empowering 
soulful soil
and surfing seas

And this trusting more
impels healing trauma's lessons,
surviving hale and...

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Can you make any sense of
systemic racism?

No more common sense than
too much patriarchalism--
all leftbrain-rightwing dominant things
oppressing sacred Earth's
polycultural win/win systems
promoting resiliently wealthy
resonant synergetic health

Care given
as received
in fruitful wombs,
like apple cores in transition
from refuse
toward rebirth

Maybe an...

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"The Book of Changes"

Thoughts arrived before words,
1000s of years before
the crossing of curves

always seen to be 
swimming upstream 
against the current

thoughts … and feelings,
in the flow, always arrive 
before words, they are cast 

in the...

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My protagonist today,
a Gay Black Religious Mature Male,
not quite ready for silver-grey Obama temples

Is off this morning
to a new full-time job,
8 to 5,
Monday through Friday.

He has been out of his calming,
regular custodial collared routine,
for over...

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It had been a hellish week.

On Monday
my lonely and tired AfricanAmerican husband
told me, as gently as possible,
that what I had hoped was a temporary separation
is to be extended into perpetuity.

This separation had been scheduled to...

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I'd like to apply for a permit
for a protest march
on the Washington Mall.

Lovely idea.
But, we're only issuing Mall permits
for Song and Dance Events.

I think this might be a violation of my Rights
to Free Speech.

I see...

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You've heard that self-unfulfilling prophecy?
"I love humanity--
it's just people I can't stand."

I love healthy humanity--
it's just uppity and/or snooty people I can't stand

I love cooperative humanity--
it's just overly-competitive individuals I can't stand.

Not so distant from,
I...

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There is nothing weaker than water
But none is superior to it in overcoming the hard,
For which there is no substitute.
(Laotse, "Nothing Weaker Than Water", Lin Yutang, trans.)

That weakness of mind and body overcomes strength
And uniting...

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Life as active love 
evolves toward more polycultural communication,
across both species and time,
within Earth’s Solar EcoSystemic Universe.

While this conversation includes human natured communicators,
we suboptimize our ecological balance
if endo-human discourse monopolizes our lifetime learning dialogue.

A life...

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10 o'clock am the morning 
Quest: A country side bike ride.
Molly woke Dolly and Damian.
Woke Everyone on that July 
Morning of 2038. They had a Bicycle 
Expedition to tend to plus a newly
Minted swimming pool...

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