Long Tangle Poems

Villanelles

The villanelle is a poetic form based on repetition, with a double refrain. 



Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day, 
with the...

Read More

your silken skin gleams opaline
bathed in Luna's soft wash of cornflower - like a
porcelain Madonna by Michelangelo
conjured to life by the magic
of moonlight

your eyes open just long enough to
affix mine, and affirm I'm in a...

Read More

Rondels, Roundels and Rondeaux

These are poetic forms similar to villanelles, with refrains (repeated lines) and sometimes double refrains.



Rondel: Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot...

Read More

Start and end each day,
and life,
with a taoist egg.

I doubt my eggs are religious.

No, but they are natural,
organic incubators, 
co-arising nondual yolk form
with transparent regenerative function,
cosmological purpose, maybe,
if you're a chicken,
or a turkey, 
or a...

Read More

Toddlers' Exploration: 

Cardboard drum and a thunderous beast
With playful roars in tiny fists and feasts.
Fleeting wings glide to dreams just out of reach
Soaring through tales of barnyard Waddles and Squeaks.
Moo! Quack! Giggles tumble and bump.
Flaps...

Read More

Translation of Les Moulins de mon Cœur-THE WINDMILLS OF YOUR MIND by T. Wignesan

(For the orignal text in French by Eddy MARNAY : see here below. The English version by Marilyn and Alan BERGMAN differs...

Read More

Font Din Black

so u real??? 
Warning! The following choppy, batty, 
dopey: elegy = flaky, goofy, history: iffy, 
jumpy, kooky: loopy, matty, nappy, nippy, 
sketchy material prone to find the reader 
dazed and bewildered, yet comfortably...

Read More

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT 1 : Number Four


Many chains, many locks and bars
clattered at four in the morning 
black bitter coffee drugged
a single bucket of cold water 
         ...

Read More

THE RISING HILLS, THE SLOPES, TO QUENCH MY THIRST.
In the last century, the hopes were little,
Grasses they collected, yellow bananas, they peeled,
To move up the slopes, preparation was fore filled,
Oh the grower of banana trees,
To...

Read More

Too much to know, I just don't know it
As I fumble around, just a humble poet 
Frustrated as I watch unfurl a show
I just don't know it, too much to know

Answers are near, in the...

Read More

Brainstorming until figuratively blue in the gills...,
and finally gung-ho with a poem title
important to yours truly
not disappointing his Facebook fan base,
which electronic affirmation,
and confirmation, breeds gratification
analogous to being
the proud papa begetting offspring
progeny growing up at...

Read More

"Seeds"



Blue reaches reflections
touching ripples 
tears in time ephemeral
caresses fragrant Green my canopy

opens the light
inside me 

cracked eggshell 
golden-yoked sunshine
pale turquoise kintsugi
splintered paths inside my mind

in the smallness
of me 
something 
quietly blooms 

ragged yet refined
a gecko...

Read More

I’ve been cutting Peter’s hair for a year. When covid lockdown occurred, I learned to cut my brother’s hair - and yes, he still has two ears. When I first met Peter, he had a...

Read More

Anomalous poetic contrivance evokes...
googling inept kickstarted lame outré jaunty hokum

(alternately titled:
Random screenshot within me noggin
instantaneously transforming, 
née devolving into gobbledygook.)

I got born with poker faced physiognomy,
no matter yours truly doth not play cards
though self same...

Read More

The Infinite Grace Of Light And Love
 
Although gone from this sad earthly plane, love may yet embrace,
for within Light's truest of gifts, Love brings its infinite grace...

Weeping tears falling into her coffee she mourned...

Read More

On reflection, a shining  mirror lays my core ethos bear,
inkling etched on mien can’t escape deep probing,
tilted jaw, gleaming eyes, vivacious aspect,
express an ardent quest for exponential flourish,
in this life of mine, and its...

Read More

                               parallel lives

  ...

Read More

Bully me you, I exemplified archetypal scapegoat...

who suffered cuts by a thousand knives.

Even as old (dish) married 
(spooning) curmudgeon, 
who receives social security disability 
linkedin with social anxiety)
chose the fork less traveled 
aye pucker with...

Read More

Eroticism -
             a supple spine in a wanting curve
       and a foolish fever simmers a scarlet heartbeat...

Read More

home again, jiggety-jog
oh, how kindly my castle welcomes me!
the pungent loves of earlier meals and my dear one's perfume
Je Reviens and Acqua Di Gioia

like manna for the sensual senses
a weary man dripping from a weary...

Read More

To have a home was always something I dreamt of growing into.
But it seemed to be out of my reach.
Each time I'd get close enough to reach out and touch it,
It would crawl back and...

Read More

" Perhaps, life is just a disaster
wrapped in fairy-glow fragments ~
shimmering with stars of death... "

O' beloved moment of time,
take me where I belong,
in the henna haze of scentless leaves
draped in doves of lotus,
I'll whimsically...

Read More

~The Untold Fatal Attraction Poem~

Mid-morning she sees the sun ahead
Her death flowed in a messaged bottle
Gazing into her brown eyes upon all open sores,
Her conscience dark and gray a never-ending war!
A giant cyclone of a...

Read More

Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch 
 
Indescribable—our love—and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
"I love you," in the ordinary way
 
and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering,...

Read More

The boat,
          smooth sea,
                     tight sail,
...

Read More