Long Swallow Poems

Let me take a little sip
Of your blessed, breathtaking brilliance that will numb...
This pain I have in this heart of stone
The voices in my head won't leave me alone
I thought I was on my own,...

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How unparticular the day had particularly been,

On March the third of two-thousand and eighteen,

For the caretaker at an historic Adirondack Inn,

Had lacked company, and therefore, dopamine.

 

‘Twas Sunday when all the guests had fled,

From either...

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Agony be to society's demise
Labels are for fools, not for the wise
Play the familiar tune of in-unison serenity 
Fatality won't come any time soon, thankfully...

Homeless people were on the news not to long ago...I weep...

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The first soft snow: 
leaves of the awed jonquil 
bow low
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

Come, investigate loneliness! 
a solitary leaf
clings to the Kiri tree
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

The cheerful-chirping cricket
contends gray...

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Dusk-gliding swallow, 
please spare my small friends
flitting among the flowers! 
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

A bee emerging
from deep within the peony's hairy recesses
flies off, sated
—Matsuo Basho translation by Michael R. Burch

That dying cricket,...

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Salvation of a Formalist, an Ode to Entropy
by Michael R. Burch

Entropy?
God's universal decree
That I get to be
Disorderly?
Suddenly
My erstwhile boxed-in verse is free?
Wheeeeee!



Eternal Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm...

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Sonnets XLII-LI

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water?
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter...
So near, yet so far.



A Surfeit of...

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[Now ShallowMan is quite content
receiving FactoidMan’s consent
to quibble and express dissent
as long as keeping covenant
with fingers crossed and belfry bent
when viewing Facts in sealed cement:]

SM
“The Facts you give me circumvent
those ‘truths’ your chuckles supplement;
although they...

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Wounded Sacred Dementia

My last foster care-provider
and -receiver story
is also a sad story
of my last special needs adoption
of bipolar born,
and oppositionally reared,
alcoholism.

My BiPolar Wounded Child
turned an auspicious five
on the day I first saw her,
and promptly rejected...

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[This poem 'No God Of  Mine' was seemingly confounding readers as
to its meaning. Ordinarily, if I felt a poem wasn't  cutting it, I'd delete
it, but on this occasion, I've been asked to explain it... so here goes.]


By...

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The language and images of Mario Vitale's poetry are so closely bound to the natural cycles of seasons, of generations, of the body's functioning, that is surprising to realize how many of his poems deal...

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Here's the deal, folks...
   This is, as indicated, the 2nd HALF of this fairly lengthy poem. Due to Poetry Soup's file-size limitations, this piece had to be posted in 2 parts. 
 ...

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Verse 1: Nothing's in my way today 
I'm finally getting my way 
Glitter sprays in the air
We are on the bridge of without-a-care,
No longer in despair 
You fed me vibrant love, my starlit sky above
You...

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A a 	big A little a
                   What words start with the letter A
    ...

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The invaluable dream you had in mind
Yesterday, you said you would take steps on achieving it tomorrow,
Yesterday's tomorrow has come today, so you still postpone it to tomorrow.
When will you stop procrastinating!
What is the connection...

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The invaluable dream you had in mind
Yesterday, you said you would take steps on achieving it tomorrow,
Yesterday's tomorrow has come today, so you still postpone it to tomorrow.
When will you stop procrastinating!
What is the connection...

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“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...

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Once again it’s Saturday; the day when footy reigns supreme.
The Dogs are up against the Cats, the premier favoured team,
but I’ve got no doubts the mighty Dogs will surely cope with that.
I couldn’t think of...

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Continued from
‘CATONITA STRIKES - PART ONE’
A Freezer Mice adventure


When no-one was around they did the finger-clicking thing
And grew to human size in time for what the day might bring
Their guns were charged and ready and...

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Exhausted, yet I can't sleep
So glad that I don't want to weep
You're living your epic life 
While mine cuts like a knife 

Under the horizon,
I see the reflection of the sun
Over the rainbow,
I see a...

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He walks around with his nose pointing upward in the air
With calculating eyes that are so fearful, mouth moving from side to side and a tongue that keeps twisting around the things that are profound....

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Zulaikha:
What a bird you are, o red-billed Bird, 
you don’t eat reddish mangoes!
By eating which ash, will you exist then
in this bower of fate?

Yusuf:
That there is any fruit better than the name of God
and any...

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I’m on my way, I’ve got to go
(the reasons why you’ll never know),
whisked away in winter’s winds, your sleeping sighs remind me.
And I’ll ramble where I please,
sometimes slipping to my knees,
phantom memories a’ chasing close...

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"Ground Level Entry"

“She fits the bill”,
they say it 
insouciantly

visions of being 
carried in the beak 
of a bilious pelican 

where it builds
its rudimentary nest, 
it uses sticks and debris

no stones, yet,
from irreverence
thrown at it

no higher...

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