Long Strained Poems

Doggerel II: Doggerel about Doggerel, or, More Nonsense Verse

The Board
by Michael R. Burch

Accessible rhyme is never good.
The penalty is understood:
soft titters from dark board rooms where
the businessmen paste on their hair
and, Walter Mitties, woo the...

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Please take this time to steer your thoughts
To a wretched land of lochs and glens.
Where a village was tasked and the people fraught
At the woe and sadness life could send.

With the Dragons gone and the...

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Was the place where we climbing down the bank
Then arrived, alpine and, for what was there
Such as, that any eyesight would be shrank.

Similar to landslide that in side bare
Before Trento the Adige just smote,
Or for...

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BodyLove feels like muscular energy, 
while AgapeMindLove emerges weirdly in reverse;
mind fluency, fertility, health…

Not in any way dissonant with BodyLove,
ideally
to grow maturing health also ecologically balanced 
EgoAnthro ReGenerate Positive Psychology
HealthAsWealth EarthTribal MindBodies.

That is,
I feel like...

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At once she paid a visit. In her colorful dress, so revealing and appealingly suited to her slendern torso. I to gaze the door way, mine heart pounded viciously,  a death knock. I was...

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Thus it begins—
A free-verse epic
Into the mind of
A writer and an idiot—
A romantic and, 
Often a pessimist
Conjoined in arbitrary glory
Are the thoughts and words 
Of one overly-worked mind—
Charismatic and, of course,
On the pushover, pitiful
And usually...

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C. T. Myers


Just a couple weeks ago the boss called in an ad, hoping we could find a guy to fill Bill Daly’s shoes.
Bill had fallen victim to the same thing that his dad had,...

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“I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed” (Sonnet XLI)
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I, being born a woman and distressed
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair,...

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Galactic Strings or Void of Space?

A poem’s akin to a necklace, one fashioned
of water-worn pebbles (from rarest of realms),
stone cold truths tumble-polished, love’s chord weaves together.
Do fossilized beads left behind in Life’s wake
spark faint hint...

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...inspired by 'Portrait Of A Lady' by T.S. Eliot


On winter days the view outside is nebulous at best,
within, the furniture is as it always was, and I am waiting,
waiting for a glimpse of you to...

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1) Preamble

As breath’s created, sustained and destroyed,
we see trika, threefold aspect at play
through life, where we are by ego decoyed,
until we choose to make love our mainstay.
Beyond religions, scriptures and folklore,
let’s explore the direct path...

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For old Star-Gazer Master Khayyam – a name like Shakespeare’s for « some » other giants - Part One

                ...

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In this life of what's to be,
we define life as what we see.
The thoughts of love and life we see,
are the driving force of what we believe.

Of the twins alive in me,
one is blind and...

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pitty-pit-pat, pitty-pit-pat ...

dark attic, echoing ... tenderly
rain on tin roof above,
her nana's voice, ages hence -
lives ago, really ... calling …

       "Little Tea Pot, Little Tea Pot -
 ...

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My most troubling client
told me he died last night.

While this did not appear to be his somber case,
nor, sadly,
did my home office silently resound
like this was his actual historical peace,
I did conjure up sufficient energy
to...

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What is this sound through day and night?
This eerie cry, this muffled moan?
Like an animal trapped alone 
in distant darkened wood. 

It does not stop, save brief respite,
to draw some breath, and then again, 
unearthly...

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Pied tidings of suburbian 
Magpies,
Squawking and squabbling,
Quarreling ferociously among 
Themselves - 
Rush to steal
From off the beleaguered bird 
tables,
To the annoyance of all concerned,
A much begrudged meal;
Before scurrying away into 
Unfrequented woodlands,
Marooned like islands in...

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Here's the 2nd HALF of this interesting 2-part piece - thanks for reading the entire poem. :)


Aware that he was gambling with the lives of all on board by sticking with his strategy to run...

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I've been having the nightmares for a while now each night,
      Although I know in my heart there is no chance of escape;
I really pray that this night will be...

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We were chasing each other through the woods,
behind the old neighborhood
where your parents still live.
I was heaving with bent-over laughter,
trying to catch up to your looking-back smile,
and then you disappeared into that opening
where the sun...

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“Clap your terrible wings, vivacious serpent of old!
Imagine my plight as dangerous as your spite,
Stomp your clawed feet on these prison floors,
Peace shall always follow the sink of your fangs…”

Silenced were the wailing demons round,
Crouched...

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Your voice kisses the breath of the morning wind
Snapping in the solemnity that bears a cry unto God.
Angels have come to earth; that in slumber seemed,
Like the wind creaking among the faith we once had.

Life...

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Insignificant,
My proses are nothing without you-
but scribbles, through and through
I dream a dark weary blur
of letters, a phrases, going by in a flur-
Even that; my thoughts seeming simple
even then it lacks luster given by you-
the...

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Mother’s dirty offender seeded life that demanded nurture, demanded attention….
Demanded unforeseen fate
Twins, thrust upon her…. strained to love, and yet…. 
This happening urged her to live

Her head lifted, agitated,
Soaked from head to toe in the...

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Cypress trees like evergreen steeples
rise above rows of gravestone woes,
their shadows lie side by side like railroad ties 
across writhing paths banded like snakes;
the gravel birth cords sinuous 
sensing the ground   seeking the...

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