Long Strung Poems

"Open Oceans"



Kneeling on pearls
wisdom preys

praying
preying

hungry hearts
count the days 

wasting away
in all that preying 

for prayers 
to be answered

children become
strangers

reading 
strange words

finding 
themselves puzzled

genuflecting to a deity
they do not know, nor wish to

fumbling
mouths closed,

swallowed hole
in the...

Read More

"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...

Read More

“The True Mother”

What part of a heart
in another could one trust
when betrayal comes
like a silver bullet, words and deeds
sharp piercing to burrow 
bleed out Life’s dreams 
rust crumbles to dust

Virulent apathy spreads 
Betrayal’s destruction 
hand...

Read More

Beckoning
by Michael R. Burch 
 
Yesterday the wind whispered my name
while the blazing locks
of her rampant mane
lay heavy on mine.
And yesterday
I saw the way
the wind caressed tall pines
in forests laced by glinting streams
and thick with...

Read More

Various Heresies 2

You
by Michael R. Burch

For thirty years You have not spoken to me;
I heard the dull hollow echo of silence
as though strange communion between us.

For thirty years You would not open to me;
You remained...

Read More

Upon this date he spoke no more of the preceding moments, 
Tearing and hurling insult upon insult
In several directions, his tongue whipped and scorched me,
And he waited relentlessly to see the spark in my eyes...

Read More

“Strange Creatures and The Forest of Egregore” 

Where do we go -

when our rosebuds
stop still in the cold,
unwanted, 
along the unopened road?

we walk into the 
forest alone, 
there we meet 
strange creatures -

some say 
they...

Read More

In the darkness of the night, 
a ruby gleams 
to contrast a slumbered eye awakened 
to feeling, 
reflection, light, 
Lady "Genie", eyes aglow
like a beast, in mid-stride,
lost in her midnight dreams is clothed in a...

Read More

Increase In Head Size

impossible mission to encapsulate notion 
flitting hither and yon, to and fro
within cranium attached to mine body,
whereby irrefutable proof prevails
predicated when yours truly
scrutinizes other people visibly aware,
I a modest married male 
blessed,...

Read More

"The Crow Bar"

she said,
here I bury my dead,
you can hear them sleeping
somnulent forget-me-nots,
snoring blithely unaware,
in neat rows between 
the thick,
ink injected lines,
their soiled lives
ploughed and 
turned over 
replanted
sunnyside down
expunged and 
wrung out

eventually,
not totally oblivious, 
they...

Read More

‘An interesting guy I think,’
People might say on meeting you for the first time,
Oh yes, I’ve come to know you too well.
Thank God for the Internet,
Although there are bodies in your wake,
And stench follows you...

Read More

I don't know how it started

But it's an annual event

But I don't think that an egg hunt

Is the best way to present

The story of our saviour

Chocolate eggs you go and find

I don't think that's the...

Read More

Spouse cannot forget mine suppressed flatulence upon our first date

While yours truly sat here 
at the desk housing MacBook Pro,
pondering his next idée fixe apropos
for gamut of anonymous readers,
he unexpectedly, noisily and effectually
exploded out rear...

Read More

You Know Who You Are! 

I know that you probably know who you are...
Abusers who prey on women (or men) .
Your aberrance mostly extends to the weak, 
Your generosity just serves other's pain
And, of course,...

Read More

Once at the roundabout, I stopped for precaution
Stretching my arching legs, so much exhaustion
Many a long mile I have been, 
I am steadfast without chagrin. 

Left there yesterday to get here early
Didn’t get lost but...

Read More

"The In-Between"

I ripped the pages of 
that tired old story 
from the heart, a body of work

buried the misdiagnosed slanders
then wiped their mouths
with the back of my spoon

the feed they found,
passed the disingenuous time;
some found...

Read More

Literate lettered latitudinarian

Presents the following slapdash
higglety-pigglety bupkis, whereby reader
experiences being mentally hogtied
perusing pseudo poetic perambulation
devoid of sense and sensibility
welcoming character assassination
concerning pride of yours truly,
who merely strung together
words sharing "arian"

as their last five letters
for no...

Read More

What is love?
A sea of nonexistence
both tranquil and calamitous
where the mind
does not dare enter.
(Rumi, M. Mafi, "Day By Day", p. 120, 2014, Hampton Roads)

What is timeless synergy?
Our sea of coexistence
both confluent and dissonant
where blind consciousness
seldom...

Read More

Myths of deductive distinctions,
like white could not come from black,
are disinformed 
when severed from contrasting inductive integrity,
greyscale dualdark co-passions 
within light's future shadows 
of golden opportunity.

RightWing patriarchs oppositionally forget
we are LeftWing matriarchal-appositional reborn
within cooperative health...

Read More

(1.)
Soothing Dream, Bathe Me In Her Light
 
Of lonely night and vivid dread
sad supper and large empty bed
denying wind, sets soul to stir
romantic memories of her
she, tender angel through and through
only true love I ever...

Read More

I was restless all the night,
The demoness softly singing a haunting tune
The Holy Spirit sifted in swirls around me,
And she touched with her claws its essence with strange wonder

I awoke to his songs strong and...

Read More

Grandma Gretchen's in her rocker and she has something to say. 

She tells a visitor, a young man from the city, if he plans to write a book about life on a farm in the...

Read More

Woven are these pages in poetic verse,
With bare threads of our deepest feelings,
You will find laughter, tears and remorse,
and words of wisdom, prayer and healings.

What compels their pens to shed poetic ink?
What forlorn moment inspired...

Read More

“Unicorns are Us” 

You can only imagine
the furore 
when magick
hit the score
the Party, not impressed,
was not for witches
too big for their
britches on brooms,
said all the high-brow
cultural dignitories
and low-strung 
toad hall politicians
pacing around the room;
so all...

Read More

Lisa and I had a party to hit-up. I can’t stay inside all the time, not on a Friday night anyway and a rooftop is the perfect place to mull over big questions and get...

Read More