Long Sullen Poems

Instruction
by Michael R. Burch

Toss this poem aside
to the filigreed and the wild tide
of sunset.

Strike my name,
and still it is all the same.
The onset

of night is in the despairing skies;
each hut shuts its bright bewildered eyes.
The...

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Various Heresies 3

Breakings
by Michael R. Burch

I did it out of pity.
I did it out of love.
I did it not to break the heart of a tender, wounded dove.

But gods without compassion
ordained: Frail things must break!
Now...

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Poems about Poems VI

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 Muse
with reprimands of Dr. Seuss.

The...

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Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There...

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Poems about Adam, Eve, Lucifer

Eden
by Michael R. Burch

Then earth was heaven too, a perfect garden.
Apples burgeoned and shone, unplucked on sagging boughs.
What, then, would the children eat?
Fruit indecently sweet,
redolent as incense, with a tempting aroma...



Outcasts
by...

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the Horror
by Michael R. Burch

the Horror lurks inside our closets
the Horror hides beneath our beds
the Horror hisses ancient curses
the Horror whispers in our heads

the Horror tells us Death is coming
the Horror tells us there’s no...

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Medieval Poems



Wulf and Eadwacer
(Old English circa 990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My people pursue him like crippled prey.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

Wulf's on one island; I'm on...

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Fulfilled fantasies and legitimate realities…you do know how to please…
Are you listening to my voice of longing and yearning?
No, don’t backstab me with your broken promises…stop being a horrid tease…
Do not worry, Lord, I am...

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your silken skin gleams opaline
bathed in Luna's soft wash of cornflower - like a
porcelain Madonna by Michelangelo
conjured to life by the magic
of moonlight

your eyes open just long enough to
affix mine, and affirm I'm in a...

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Year One -

Tell me Eve,
does this Garden have everything we need,
do you think the walls are too tall,
are the gatekeepers reasonable, tolerable, right about it all,
what did Lilith know, where did she go
far past the...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VII

These are early poems I wrote as a boy and as a teenager.

The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men...

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Pain settles in quite instantly your senses 
are totally unprepared for this graveness
the notion to sleep sets in like an energetic 
twilight phase the injury abruptly strangles 
thought my ears are always ringing with this...

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Good boy gone bad enters the stage with a spotlight overhead, despite being misunderstood in my ghetto neighborhood

The lonely applause celebrates in my cracked, corrupted, and crazed cranium
I exaggerate too much and so too much,...

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“The God Complex”



His face imprinted 
hidden under layers of ink
he whispers his words

like a haunting breeze
dust blown off the pages
towards the back of their minds

once-in-a-while 
reminding them of stories 
they are eventually, all souls

book-marked 
tagged...

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“Concrete Hearts, the Deep End Keys and the Miniaturist's Poetry of Sleep”

Following the Babel paths,
where footprints progress
like rough-hewn braille,
temptation shows itself well deep
to be turned and touched,
substantially labyrinth

The Open 
is lead  
further in, and...

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An Excelente Balade of Charitie (“An Excellent Ballad of Charity”)
by Thomas Chatterton, age 17
modernization/translation by Michael R. Burch

As wroten bie the goode Prieste
Thomas Rowley 1464

In Virgynë the swelt'ring sun grew keen,
Then hot upon the meadows...

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Freed from my mind
I escape it
I end time
I think it
I think nothing of it
I believe in you
I believe in the American Dream
I think of it
I think nothing
I know you are something
How is it found 
Where...

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This is an unfinished Heroic Crown of Sonnets dedicated to a friend's grandchild who was born with serious lower body issues 3 years ago...but he is so perfect and beautiful in every other way that...

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Youth

When orchids bloom in beauty life's aglow
to hold emotions locked in deep repose
in young desire and love warm thoughts will show.
Affection holds its ardor as it grows
to burn inside young hearts in evening tide.
In darkest...

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Stood upright, between two roads,
On a thin metal rail,
A solitary, brown coloured bottle 
Of beer,                    ...

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As darkness absorbed in my reveries, my usual lapse accommodated itself in height of melancholy but not in this conscience. Then I found myself in my room and my window opened. Everything in upheaval, a...

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Winnie, wild-eyed, went insane
and sang “Happy Birthday” in the rain, 
while she washed away her bloody pain.

Now all day long she sings that song,
she sings it loud, she sings it strong,
walled in where she does...

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Your drinker's doom
Turned out to be a tranquil tomb
Is there any room
To bring out your brilliant, legitimate bloom?

You linger around my restful haven,
My darksome and lonesome, yet pretty satisfying bedroom
You stared at me vacantly and...

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In the beginning after God had finished creating this land.    
Satan boldly challenged the heavens for the absolute control of man.
Gods’ architectural blueprint stretched for ages across the sky 
He watered the...

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Silently he sat in darkness, flinching at the sight of light.
Which created a glow reflecting on his balding head.
His cold glare did not help my nerves, 
so I simply stood there observing his silence.

His philosopher...

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