Long Thou Poems

Unique: I need someone to hold me and tell
me it's alright.
I need someone to hold my hands and feel
my pain.
I need someone to kiss away my pain.
I need someone to look into my eyes and...

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With this needle and thread I stitch the wounds Avril left
but with this blade I angrily carve a new
rough, short, jagged adjacent from the bone in my wrist
for a reflection of our relationship
and an outlet...

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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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Where art thou anonymous benefactor...to offer me succor?

Ah... methinks legal tender 
could be a boon to help me bolster 
mein kampf with necessary material equipage,
which prospect to acquire essential 
commodities sabotaged 
at the altar of...

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Vacuum
by Michael R. Burch

Over hushed quadrants
forever landlocked in snow,
time’s senseless winds blow...

leaving odd relics of lives half-revealed,
if still mostly concealed...
such are the things we are unable to know

that once intrigued us so.

Come then, let us...

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State of the Art (IV)

These are my "ars poetica" poems about the art and craft of writing poetry. 



Hearthside
by Michael R. Burch

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep...”  — W. ...

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Wonderland
by Michael R. Burch
 
We stood, kids of the Lamb, to put to test
the beatific anthems of the blessed,
the sentence of the martyr, and the pen’s
sincere religion. Magnified, the lens
shot back absurd reflections of each...

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Various Heresies 4

I, Lazarus
by Michael R. Burch

I, Lazarus, without a heart,
devoid of blood and spiritless,
lay in the darkness, meritless:
my corpse?a thing cold, dead, apart.

But then I thought I heard?a Voice,
a Voice that called me from...

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There is nothing weaker than water
But none is superior to it in overcoming the hard,
For which there is no substitute.
(Laotse, "Nothing Weaker Than Water", Lin Yutang, trans.)

That weakness of mind and body overcomes strength
And uniting...

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Spring
by Charles d'Orleans (c.1394-1465)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab at whatever passes,
so we can...

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Date:  January  2046

8:45 am  in the Damian Domaine 
Some are sleeping some are peeping
What are we eating? Said Molly to
Dolly. "What ever we can?" She replied 
While still sleepy eyed checking
Supplies. So...

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Athenian Epitaphs II

These are ancient Greek epitaphs for lost family and friends, including dogs and other animals ...

Now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night: 
his owner's faithful Maltese... 
but will...

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Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers II



All Things Galore
by Michael R. Burch

for my grandfathers George Edwin Hurt Sr. and Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

Grandfather,
now in your gray presence
you are

somehow more near

and remind me that,
once, upon a star,
you...

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Pain settles in quite instantly your senses 
are totally unprepared for this graveness
the notion to sleep sets in like an energetic 
twilight phase the injury abruptly strangles 
thought my ears are always ringing with this...

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Hark and listen well, if those foretoken in the eyes of hungers lust
Trapped in their illusion, trampling the Stars into dust
Forced with the detestation stench by the swamp of absolute disgust
Thou blackest scorpion be accursed,...

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- - Chapter 2: Adult Responsibility (With Some Breaks) - -     

By ten years old, no weekends off, 
Or Saturday cartoons, 
Although I did have cash to spend, 
I felt my...

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From Judges 11.
Pronunciation: Seh-LAY-nah

His brothers cast the young man out, the child of an harlot;
He fled away to distant Tob before they found an outlet
For anger, more than what they'd done, to fully disinherit
And drive...

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He just appeared to me, like wispily curling 
Chimney smoke, 
One grim and early morning in the very midst of 
Decembers briefest days, on the highest slope,
Toiling through my daily round; where, slowly 
Driving up...

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Already I reached the place where heard the sound
Of falling water in the circle next
Suchlike the rumble done by hives around,

When three spirits together changed their treks,
Running, out of  an horde just passing there
Under...

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"White Noise and the Mother Load of Dark Matter" 

underneath the static
what exists 
is never seen nor heard

for what it truly is 
the eyes and mind 
retaliate in the deciphering

the invisible return 
each night and...

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They pursued it with vigor, they pursued it with crass
They hunted with valor and hope
They proceeded with a dose of good Knightly sass
They chased it with tackle and rope

Now King Arthur declared in a boisterous...

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The tears well up, and scarce could she not moan
When father, brother, husband, all have died.
She now has no possessions, neither home,
But travels to a distant, unknown land:
Once so secure, yet now compelled to roam;
Once...

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I wondered how that I could be a child of the King.
A long lost soul, I had no goal, but to maybe act and sing.
I believed in Jesus, a man of love,
But scared to death...

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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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In sandy Egypt lived three men
In ancient days when pharaohs reigned
The kingdom of the pyramids,
Osiris and that Isis’ den,
Whom everyone worships and heeds,
Or at least doing so they feigned,
And those gods too blessed them and...

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