Long Symbolism Poems

"Oak" 

The guardians
stood around and 
shook their heads

great thoughts 
quivering 
from the ground, roots up, 

as if to walk 
confidently 
with great armies

yet hesitation 
was witnessed
in their waving gestures

perplexed 
and touching 
green crowns, 

there they...

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"The Payload" 

The payload 
came crashing down
like rain expelled
from the fat belly 
of a ruinous pregnant cloud 
bilious with buxom promise

it came crashing down 
like school fish released 
from the tight confines
of a course rope...

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“Forever”



When The Terrors came,
The Uncontrollable Ones,
she closed her eyes
and listened for the notes
her mother had planted
amongst the deep blues,
beds of Forget-Me-Nots,
she followed the 
labyrinthine trail 
and through a gate unhinged,
it would seem destroyed, thrown aside,
she...

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“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...

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SELF REFLECTIONS

These are poems about mirrors, images, self-image, reflections, impressions and self-reflection. 

Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch 

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she's grossly...

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"The Book of Changes"

Thoughts arrived before words,
1000s of years before
the crossing of curves

always seen to be 
swimming upstream 
against the current

thoughts … and feelings,
in the flow, always arrive 
before words, they are cast 

in the...

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“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...

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I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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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,...

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The Moon as a Metaphor for Your Mouth
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a...

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Today, catching sight of the mallards
crying over Lake Iware:
Must I too vanish into the clouds?
—Prince Otsu translation by Michael R. Burch  

This world—
to what may we compare it?
To autumn fields
lying darkening at dusk
illuminated by...

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The Old Dark House

This tale of “The Old Dark House” is one that’s replete with a
most horrid sense of pure evil and macabre, and is worth being
retold each year during the deep-dark hours of All...

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This tale of “The Old Dark House” is one that’s replete with a
most horrid sense of pure evil and macabre, and is worth being
retold each year during the deep-dark hours of All Hallows’ Eve
before the...

Read More

This tale of “The Old Dark House” is one that’s replete with a
most horrid sense of pure evil and macabre, and is worth being
retold each year during the deep-dark hours of All Hallows’ Eve
before the...

Read More

Happy Fourth Of July, Or Happy Independence Day

On this day we celebrate and commemorate the birth of our nation, The United States of America's Independence from Great Britain's monarchical hold and liberty's triumph
Congress voting in...

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In the dark of night a wind took hold,
With powers charged to shake the sky,
By moody swings of gods up high,
Their breath alone enraged and bold.

In the dark of night history spoke,
Of a world alive...

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“Inside the Great Halls of Us”



Inside 
The Great Halls of Us,
there resides a ghost 

IT hides in plain sight,
waiting quietly, alone, 
in our dark

there, IT holds ITs light,
to draw us further in,
we nervously laugh IT...

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Poetic Encryption Like Ancient Egyptian

This terror and threat to poetic clarity,
Becomes a pet rock for some poets.

Words do count for sure, but so does
Clarity unless poets put a mask on.

Encryption can be used to mask...

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Old Glory has Something He Wants to Say  
By – Roger White
The dawn’s first sunlight crests over the eastern horizon.  A midnight dark sky leisurely changes tinctures: blue becomes purple, bright azure and...

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Now as the years passed by everyone became so tired
the heaps of things scattered around became too much to bear
some benevolence was certainly grand but this was too much
the two felt unable to undertake ...

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I was so anxious to get away but I did not realize what was on the way
I got a standing ticket because all the tickets have been sold out some on the black market, others...

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This is how it starts
the decline of who we are, the decline of something more
the start of wars
Installed in us is confidence
confidence, a blessing or a curse
Without confidence we stand degraded, disenchanted, alone
while with too...

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"FALL"



I wrap
my Autumn world
around you

Calliope turning
raising the 
season’s poetry, 

I am she
returning 

dancing 
with Summer’s 
dying leaves 

Twirling you up into 
my warm golden brown 
symphony

hear me sing, 
whispering notes,
holding keys 

towards you 
you're approachable
reaching...

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Centuries ago

In ancient Hermopolis

A debate roared loud

Between a proud Christian priest

And a strange shepherd

Who was a Manichaean

Wearing ragged clothes

And who was looking for sheep

“Flames will consume you”

The priest roared at the shepherd

Because their debate

Was going...

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"Slow Gin and Astral Conversations"



A maze me?

I’m the architect 
of my own destiny
he beguiled her 
incessantly 
from the depths of 
his bottled up Carceri
she knew him 
before he became 
a complex 
well-hidden 
Piranesi
twixt your world
and...

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