Long Thirties Poems

Dog Daze
by Michael R. Burch

Sweet Oz is a soulful snuggler;
he really is one of the best.
Sometimes in bed
he snuggles my head,
though he mostly just plops on my chest.

I think Oz was made to love
from the...

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 TUAN TATA : Song of Uda - I
by T. Wignesan

(Patrick Noone, a British anthropologist, discovered the Ple-Temiar tribe living isolated in the jungle highlands in the State of Perak on the west coast of...

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Beneath a misty veil of ‘Euphoria’ by Calvin Klein, she dares to dream of acceptance in a world of wanna-be Literary Giants who are members of an elite writer’s group, as she drives along a...

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I was in the shotgun seat
in 1960 Lansing Michigan
headed straight as a harddrive
through ghettoizing "Negra Section"
hunting down our commercial whitebread 
heavenly ThriftyAcres

Wanna be a WalMart ImPlantation
but not Southern enough,
somehow,
to withstand straight-male competition
in fluent White Privileged...

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Dear Brother,

When we were children
adults often asked us
What do you hope to be
when you grow up?

But, our brothers and sisters
were more likely,
and probably more wise,
to ask
Who would you most hope to become?
To be like?

Which implies,...

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I could not do what you are mandated to do
every day on society's justice bench,
weighing retributive justice 
against restorative healing.

I cannot look with any comfort
at police
and correction officers'
routinely criminalizing vocations,
and courtroom injudicious levying of fines
against...

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The very abridged version recounting untold tragicomic storied life of Matthew Scott Harris

I led a boring life.
The end.

All joking aside, now the epilogue.

As a bookish fellow born January 13th,1959
he attended school and got promoted
as a...

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* Note My dad passed away today, a little over seven months since my mom passed. After a thirty year estrangement my dad and I reconciled when mom died. I figured I'd write this today,...

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• By daniel miltz •


You're not born with cool, you've got to find it. A leather jacket that fits like a glove knows it. Cool is an act. Cool is by learning to stand out...

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Mitchell: At this level, as with the rest, one might also find those who have stumbled down from a higher step on the crystal staircase from dancing too many tangos in their Manolo Blahniks, as...

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We brought a puzzle to the cabin,
rented on a Friday-front holiday.
Our tween was bored before we passed the first exit.
We needed the escape—
a break from where we'd been and where we were
(or thought we were,...

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neither cleanliness nor godliness do I abide
rather yours truly doth thrive
on keeping the ethos, mythos,
and pathos of Pigpen alive
subjected to eternal
abomination, brutalization,
condemnation, damnation,
emasculation, humiliation, ostracization,
who one day envisions himself
as a decrepit solitudinarian
an aging long haired...

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Dog Daze II: Poems about Dogs

Epitaph for a Lambkin
by Michael R. Burch

for Melody, the prettiest, sweetest and fluffiest dog ever

Now that Melody has been laid to rest
Angels will know what it means to be blessed.

Amen



The...

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DETECTIVE
The murder of the noted activist
took the whole community by surprise,
Jessie Malinche was known by the whole town,
some had praised her, others said she spoke lies,
for years she had fought, had ‘stood for women,’
this was...

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In the year of 1880,
in Watertown, northern New York,
a man walked into an almshouse,
looked no different from other poor.

The man’s dress was quite slovenly,
he was clad in rough leather boots,
wore flannel strips around his neck,
and...

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I couldn’t prevent the way my life went in my twenties 
unprecedented events continuously astounded 
it left me numb and confused into my thirties,
those intense incidents consistently impounded. 

I'm breaking out this perplexed stunned silence,
penetrating...

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When young Marnie was known by most for beauty few could match,
by looks alone many declared the woman was a catch.
And like most girls who are so blessed, she knew just what she had,
knew what...

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...At first he said, “It’s okay, babe.
I work hard, I deserve my play.
For several years he managed it,
played to the masses in the pit.

They lived the high life, best they could,
for a good while it...

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IV.
It started out like it had every year,
she went to the hospital, sat on a bench,
stared at the eminence from the outside,
and felt the stirrings of a heart to be wrenched,
just about the time that...

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He shrugged and said,”If you’ve no home
I guess you could stay for a while.
But you will have to learn the traps,
and that means many cold miles.”

Bill answered back, between fast bites,
“I’ll work hard if it...

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His name was Emmet Patterson,
and back in 1863,
he led a cavalry unit
patrolling deep in Tennessee.

The state was firm in Union hands,
Tte Civil War in its third year,
but the threat of partisan raids
meant that he was...

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III.
“Excuse me m’am,”he did call out,
“It looks like you could use some help.”
The woman looked up cautiously,
if she feared him, he could not tell.

“And what if my husband should come,
see a stranger talking with me?”
He...

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I have go not advanced degree
from a fancy eastern school.
I’ve no idea who Beckett is,
so you declare that I’m a fool.
Yet yesterday I restored to life
an old engine from the thirties,
I’ve got a PhD in...

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Prayer Time 

Childhood memories with bleeding prayers, with scalps on my knees from praying so constantly.
Believing in the truth as best as I could as a frightened little girl. I would tip toe my way...

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...The man nodded a bit, taking it in,
then absently stroked the beard on his chin,
said,”Everyone wants hat they think they deserve,
I can’t help but think you got it backwards.

“Not you alone, the issue is this:
You’ve...

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