Long Swift Poems

“Éagmais croí a dhíscaoileadh ar gach eagla.
Faoi dhíon taobh istigh de na blianta seo.
Fanacht i bhfianaise, a dhíscaoileadh ar gach eagla.
Ós rud é go ndearnadh tú a chaitheamh.
Briseadh an tost seo”



"An Bee Cailleach"


She lives to...

Read More

“The True Mother”

What part of a heart
in another could one trust
when betrayal comes
like a silver bullet, words and deeds
sharp piercing to burrow 
bleed out Life’s dreams 
rust crumbles to dust

Virulent apathy spreads 
Betrayal’s destruction 
hand...

Read More

Nemesis, Confrontation And The Rejoined Battle,
Now Completed


(Nemesis) - Part One

O'lord of blight dare thee to now abide
Leaving thy abode to earthen realm ride
As punisher with dark universal might
As grief bearer, humanity to smite!

Dar'est thee enter,...

Read More

No Mark
by Michael R. Burch

A wave implodes, 
impaled upon
impassive rocks...

this evening
the thunder of the sea
is a wild music filling my ear...

you are leaving
and the ungrieving
winds demur...

telling me
that nothing returns
as it was before...

here where you have...

Read More

Juvenilia: Early Poems XI

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and...

Read More

Date:   April   2026

The 1st degree is unknown 

Damian and Polly had planned
The trip to the Copy Cat Club
For weeks with Dolly and Molly
The club was popping when
They hit the scene.
The DJ...

Read More

Once upon a weedy lawn
At Cedar Oaks Retirement Home
There sat my mother, weak and old
On an afghan knit to block the cold.

It was summer, but in mom's grey eyes
Was winter, when all around us dies.
I...

Read More

Winter Awakens My Care
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1300
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything...

Read More

THIS WORLD OF DEW

This world? 
Moonlit dew
flicked from a crane's bill.
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Seventy-one?
How long
can a dewdrop last? 
—Eihei Dogen Kigen, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Dewdrops beading grass-blades
die before...

Read More

Here he stands, Edwardian vogue, sometimes with his spats, 
sometimes with his brogues below his dungarees. With rounded collar points and tie, and jacket donned below this flying suit, his waste is tied with simple...

Read More

Self destructive wickedness arrested, convicted, and gaoled...

with kidnapping little boy 
ordered to suffer
life sentence without parole.

The deadly scourge of  
one obsessive/compulsive disorder
nearly left me starving to death.

Anorexia nervosa absent bulimia 
nadir of onset 
diagnoses...

Read More

The Song of Amergin: Modern English Translations

The Song of Amergin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am the sea breeze
I am the ocean wave
I am the surf's thunder
I am the stag of the seven tines
I am...

Read More

Yet at this very moment the cathedral was crumbling
down upon the cries of foresaken refugees, 
the monastery's walls wobbling from war's wreckage, 
and as the black bursts billowed into sun drenched brutality
with the bodies of...

Read More

Rosalia - The Evil Witch of the Harz, Part Four

Rosalia’s Date with Destiny and the Power of Light and Goodness
It is said that the Almighty Lord God works in very mysterious ways . . ....

Read More

On that night the moon seemed hidden from her starry brothers
The kind of night not suited for the fighters nor the lovers
I ventured out only to put out the low burning lamp
When there I saw...

Read More

These are prophetic poems and apocalyptic poems ...



The Vision of the Overseer’s Right Hand
by Michael R. Burch

“Dust to dust ...”

I stumbled, aghast,
into a valley of dust and bone
where all men become,
at last, the same color...

Read More

,It's like some long lost fairy tale 
That's handed down through time
But couldn't be, as you will see
For this strange tale is mine.

I chose to take a country road 
I do from time to time
To...

Read More

Now the sun and the sand were treacherously hot
    and not a place for Man or a Beast.
As you must be audaciously quick to find a good spot
    or...

Read More

Slang..
Chick-fil-a = the best place ever
jade = 
brooke = gorgeous 
mishin = the boss, as in “You aren’t the boss of me.”

Orpheus
We’re on vaycay. School is OVER, COVID is over. We’re in New York City...

Read More

Our lusty voice was in the tramp of narrow, winding,
     Scree-littered, deep-rutted roads;     
 Ravens, uttering guttural croaks, slow-wheeling above      
 ...

Read More

CAST:

Prince Zag The Freid: Son of King Othor The Freid, younger brother of Prince Zig The Freid

Duke Mor: Close friend of King Othor and an arbiter between father the king and of his son the...

Read More

The Roman administrators came for the wealth of our worship
demanding that I crack the church's coffers wide open
for their needs, for the Empire's desperate embellishments,
in place of gold I presented the poor
I told the onery...

Read More

SONNET 1
                         MY CHRISTMAS WISH TO SANTA
    ...

Read More

Swept up into piles; everywhere 
Abouts; in collected heaps all 
Around.               
It is almost as if the drab 
Streets were strewn...

Read More

The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem and The Riming Poem
Old English Poem (i.e., Anglo-Saxon Poem) from the Exeter Book, ca. 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this sun
and...

Read More