Long Subsided 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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Juvenilia: Early Poems VI



An Illusion
by Michael R. Burch

The sky was as hushed as the breath of a bee
and the world was bathed in shades of palest gold
when I awoke.

She came to me with the sound...

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See
by Michael R. Burch

See how her hair has thinned: it doesn’t seem
like hair at all, but like the airy moult
of emus who outraced the wind and left
soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes
are...

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You are a 15 year old girl;
so young and able;
stature small , petite short not tall,  they hardly see at the kitchen table;
And at school it's not cool;
you're chosen;
But not for love, just..
Lust;
you see...

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Rejection Slips

With over 5,700 publications if I count poems that have gone viral, I suppose I shouldn’t complain … but I do have some poems that have never been accepted for publication. Here are a...

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My auntie came to visit when I was three, but nearly four.
    I proudly and lovingly wore her name gifted to me, a sweet legacy.
       I...

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A new day begins and new promises made
The child guiding his way
Finally warmed he seemed less afraid
As through the snow they slowly made headway
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

     “Who is this child?” he whispered to...

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Was it a cruel twist of fate?
Sneering, laughing chance?
Perhaps something I ate?
A bad bout of happenstance?

It wrenched and tore at my gut,
A sickening, sober, foreboding sign.
Wretched chance it was not,
This time was by insidious design.

The...

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This is a tale of one of the orneriest dudes there ever was, and how someone much smaller, but easily more clever than he was, managed to cope with his belligerence.  

  ...

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Write a Children's story short Poetry Contest
Sponsor: The Seeker

Once there was this little girl…
She had big doe brown eyes and a beauty mark on her upper right cheek. Her name was Ella Rose. One day...

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Selena...Sarah the Sorceress
Russell...the Ghost of Never-land
This year has not been mine
Death laughs at me as he steals my grandfather from me
while I plead emptily for him to take me instead
yet I fail to realize I'm...

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I will make a collage of my college days
Just like I did with my High School days...at least in my mind every May as long as the memories stay with me...I know they won't stray...

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“I must say, Rian,” Joulupukki addressed the Dark Elf. “I find you a bit disappointing.  From all of the stories I've heard, I expected so much more from you.”
     “I...

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Dad, I remember well the night I grew up. 
I know you remember that night too...
   I know you never forgot this happening:
  
It was 1966, an early Fall night, around 10:30...

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There "he" stood in front of me, the deep forest behind him framing
His ancient face like an emerald halo, the growing dark of dusk getting
Deeper by the moment. He was no more than two-and-a-half feet...

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THE bad weather had subsided. \the sound of the spring equinox heralded the falling of a silence on the world. In the village, a few village men, young and old, sat around the long dining...

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I have been trying to pen this verse for the past two weeks but
Someone was standing in my way and my mind went astray
Can’t you see that it is a brand new day?
Winter has subsided...

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The experience of leaving the ground was a sensation that she could never have imagined.  Her stomach felt strange and at first she felt light headed, but that subsided in a short while. ...

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In 1958 Elmer's was the only high school in his county that had been integrated. Basketball was the big sport. People in the little town filled the gym every Tuesday and Friday. They roared when...

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Not too many decades out of college
I finally landed my first full-time job,
as a White House speech writer.

I know,
you would expect
I would not start at the top
and then claw
and grab
and snatch my way to the...

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A traveler dwelling among refreshing springs
The busied day was drawing a close
Evening dishes clamored loudly to sing
Outside my door a whipping wind blows

Working to rest a goodnight rest
Again I hear that whipping wind that blows
But...

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...and then just as suddenly, constellations appeared in a daytime sky, framed by white pines crawling with multicolored caterpillars.  So from this day forward, they would search the sky for more star pictures. They...

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"Morning time to rise and shine."
The two mothers started their
Own chant "MORNING TIME 
THE MOTHERS SAID 
CHILDREN GET OUT OF BED."
The kids protested throwing 
The Covers over their heads.
The women began threatening 
Them, Saying, "do...

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Whistle train, off in the way

                             ...

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(*The Gift)
This here is a side trip, nothing more,
To our country home far and away.
Grandparents own one by the seashore,
This a gift, gramps in-law and mentor,
They raised teen/gramps, not a runaway.

Gramps helped older sis and...

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