Long Swarms Poems

As winter hazes of January spraying
While I was meditating on how
To write this riveting poem which
Seemed to be for someone who
I never cast in my sight.
Despite her name is not an odd in me
But I...

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The First Valentine Poem

Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465) has been credited with writing the first Valentine poem for his wife in 1415. Charles wrote the first Valentine poem in the first year of his captivity while being...

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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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Winter
by Michael R. Burch

The rose of love's bright promise
lies torn by her own thorn;
her scent was sweet
but at her feet
the pallid aphids mourn.

The lilac of devotion
has felt the winter hoar
and shed her dress;
companionless,
she shivers—nude, forlorn.

Published...

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You Never Listened
by Michael R. Burch
 
You never listened,
though each night the rain
wove its patterns again
and trembled and glistened...
 
You were not watching,
though each night the stars
shone, brightening the tears
in her eyes palely fetching...
 
You...

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For Pharaoh still exalts himself and thinks he’s in control,
But if he won’t release my folk, he’ll pay a heavy toll.
Tomorrow I will bring down hail like Egypt’s never seen,
On plants and trees and man...

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 A French ‘Indianist’ Doctor: A Tribute to a Die-hard Humanist
                         ...

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Old Pharaoh had enslaved the Jews; he would not let them go.
So God devised a mighty scheme; his go-to guy was Mo.
His brother Aaron was the voice, for Moses talked real slow,
So he would wave...

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LOVE POEMS I by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about passion, desire, lust, sex, a first date and dating, a first crush, a first girlfriend and...

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"The Call of the Grimoire" 


when Exalibur was retrieved 

from the rock, then foolishly 
and irretrievably lost 
in that dreadful battle most worthless

the imps encouraged 
the once good Poesie folk 
to jeer and throw pebbles

the...

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It has been said
There is no bad question
asked with cooperative integrity.

While those asked with competing disintegrity,
mendaciously,
are not really questions at all.

That said,
conceded as asked and answered,
Some questions remain
more ecologically and economically,
politically and personally,
publicly and intimately,
naturally...

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In the intimate interlace of chance and fate, in the ultimate interplay of time and place, and with the consummate checkmate of my human dignity, all that is -- is over, in the stormy, swarming...

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Book 2
“Next we will use and abuse, the wedge of doubt.  To place a misgiving, a slight of hand, an apprehension into the day,  to mold the day thoughts of these apes, these...

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The flames of the furnace (well-travelled by wind
slowly glazing the rags of gray women chagrined
at the sight of a hair fleeing tresses now thinned) 
sometimes billow like waves flooding naves through the night,
when the lightning...

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Heavy pressures of fame were getting to me, since I was world famous,
And desperately needed a getaway, as a rainbow sometimes detains us.

I was a successful performer, and ardent press went wherever I went,
Like exotic...

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In my New England town
our local Democratic Party runs everything.

Some would argue these local celebrities
and self-promoting treasures
to posterity
rather over-run everything,
and surely we could find some truth
in this way of seeing,
but we are learning a spirit...

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Keep your head up above the surface
Don't lose grip or you'll soon fall on your 
face
My eyes search for any signs of 
weaknesses
And my mouth devours everything in sight

You're flipping out like some mad hornet
sinister...

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Do the Dead see with their own eyes

    for Thadchayani, my poetry-loving doctor sister :  28/08/1929 – 26/10/2014 
            ...

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IS THIS...?             Poem 8/17/

Written for Jim Eslinger , 37-year anniversary

What are these specks we must trudge over, 
Transplanting ourselves from one wilderness to
Another?...

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War, Is Unholy Hell

War is wicked rot and most holy hell
 man's evil is its murdering spell
Yet mankind never ever truly learns
 love and faith it arrogantly spurns

Poetry by the great Siegfried Sassoon
 glows like...

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We're now in the year 6555, and I am feeling happy and so alive,
Above, sunshine pours like honey, as along the oceanside I drive.

Wind whips my hair around, beneath skies a deep sparkling blue,
Like the...

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Alien talk I can’t understand
A Pifflewig performed a handstand
He verbalised through his ass
Gross putrid wind he did pass
Like many blokes throughout the land!

I farted, perhaps it was fear
Foul wind was expelled from my rear
The pifflewig...

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It was here,
On the heart of Appalachia
Where the moon and stars shimmer
Across the blue gray ridges,
Where the sunlight reflects the whisper
Echoing through the pines and laurels
Struggling to be heard through the stillness
Darkening the whimsical thoughts
Quieting...

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Have you swam the forests      under the seas
glided it's waters             wandered it's keys
watched the gray giants  ...

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I was an accomplished librarian, who took pleasure from written words,
As opera singers find their pleasure, in the halls where music is heard.

I was well matched to such absorbing work, knowing it was worthwhile,
Like stars...

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