Long Sundials Poems

Observance
by Michael R. Burch

Here the hills are old and rolling
carefully in their old age;
on the horizon youthful mountains
bathe themselves in windblown fountains...

By dying leaves and falling raindrops,
I have traced time's starts and stops,
and I have...

Read More

Sneaking into the museum to avoid the sudden rain
Raisin said, “I don’t want to get soaked right through again,
It was bad enough when that truck through that puddle dashed
And you and me - but mainly...

Read More

Archaischer Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

Read More

Anyone who wants to fight me all the time
committee meetings, board meetings.
Facing death was how they knew they were alive
or was it more about allocating resources
like yr Dad said.
It's hard to step outside what yr...

Read More

She sells suicide in the mirror i see
by the seashore dark lady
how i adore her
arch angel say it if you want
that whore its allright
she sells herself black magic
by twelve
arms open wide laugh
and i know i...

Read More

© 2010 (Jim Sularz)

A morning meadow - tall, red-yellow speckled,
now, humbled low by the wind.

Conifer sundials – mirrored shadows, slowly stretching, dancing, and then diminishing - along blurred edges of a lush, flowing sea.

Feathered, high...

Read More

** Watching Time **



From all analog to any
Digitally shown markings
Of humanity’s invented 
Way to watch over Light
— passing or coming —
Time…

In less than a breath,
So, so many ways our anxious
Noting of hours may be halted:
By...

Read More

Endless purple flowers
and salt pools like polished mirrors
give color to the desert 
and reflect the clear blue sky---
disguising with their beauty
the poor soil and salinity
of wastelands inhospitable, 
inarable and dry.

Wrapped in a serape,
and sipping chocolate´,
I...

Read More

Tracking time has changed throughout the years
Improving how hours, minutes, seconds appear 
Sundials, hourglasses, pendulums and more
Wall, wrist, mantle, waterproof - clocks galore

There is a certain beauty to time hanging from a chain
A charm of...

Read More

Fireflies beacons, nomad, I quest
Thrusting dagger deep into night
Afterglow, apparitions that fest
Dancing in the wake, and they fade away, when pulling out the knife

Forlorn my laden soul, it is a walking corpse
Stride I, battle broken...

Read More

Prompt: Sundial


Stone keeper
of time so frail,
Gazes over gardens,
Poisoned
by pretentious people
Longing to lengthen living.
Time trickling away,
The truth shall stay.


Superior shrine of ages
Shines,
Preserved
past periods
when legends had long	lost life.
Casting contorted shadows from its path,
The renewed sun shall laugh;...

Read More

Sunlit curly blond hair, icy blue eyes 
Horse shoe crabs, sundials, cloudless skies
Rolling Stones, Dean Koontz and Mathematics 
treasure hunting, pizza nights, schematics 
fossils, meteors, tulips, strawberries
complex creation physics and theories
Sea breezes, ponies, quiet dreams...

Read More

I only tell of sunny hours ...
Although dark shadows cast their gloom.
My prototype in ancient times
Stood guard outside a Pharaoh's tomb.
              ...

Read More

Green Oasis in the midst of burning sands.

Milk ed Maidens in garb of headdress band.

Soaked in milk and butters cream.
Supple like the grass, taught like the reed.
Come back to me, fall back to your 
Leige.

The...

Read More

In the clock the man is Red.
Play on Deadly Sands for years...
Tick-tock: bloody bleak son's!
Tick-tock: Humanity is DEAD.
Wading into time’s
Tide, wiping off the grime
In the days of the black flood...
In seasons of deep crimson thunder...
Heads...

Read More

I've spent sundials of time feeding ghosts,
teaspoons of fear
dollops of regret
pecks of what ifs.
Just to keep them pacified
'til I could grow some balls and climb
the cold cliffs of courage. 
but the truth is...
I'll never climb...

Read More

...Do I lay you to rest?
Gathering up the harp
Assuming its over
via the cold shoulder 
Pure skin I once travelled 
hands pressed 

Playing strings with grace
lost in sound
when did emotion blind thee?
Once gentle heart beats
Darken eyes...

Read More

Pendulums swing,

presences in moments tick

rhythms persevere

reverberating emotions tingle

soul pressure surges

sundials dance in resonance to sunrise

a captain's badge drops

memories unfurl as tomorrow glides on fragments of the present

while today remains clouded in visions of tomorrow

soaring with...

Read More

Autumn Day
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Lord, it is time. Let the immense summer go.
Lay your long shadows over the sundials
and over the meadows, let the free winds blow.
Command the late fruits...

Read More

rain drops due cause the dew thickens
 in the morn light barely flicking, misting
crickets stop in thickets and listen
stillness of the moment sundials ticking
presence of the motion constantly spoken
loads of odes a la mode ...

Read More

It is ceaseless and silent and governs all—
Everything on earth and what is in space.
It orders the seasons and leaves that fall
And it etches furrows on the human face.

Of what occurs in its domain it...

Read More