Long Tick Poems

Impossible mission to captcha infinitesimal moment

alternately titled: tick tock runneth amuck
seconds elapse imperceptibly 
leaving me dumbstruck,
how quickly fleeting tempus fugit; 
ofttimes imagined as time thief.

Hence following vignette: quiet as a mouse lurks the time thief...

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Poems about Poems (I)



What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer
~~~underwater~~~
watching the shoreline blur
sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles...
Both worlds grow obscure.



Muse/Goddess
by Michael R. Burch

“What will you conceive in...

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Poems about Butterflies and Bees



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...



Album
by Michael R. Burch

I caress them—trapped in brittle cellophane—
and I see how young they were,...

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The Making of a Poet
by Michael R. Burch

While I don’t consider “Poetry” to be my best poem—I wrote the first version in my teens—it’s a poem that holds special meaning for me; I call it...

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State of the Art (II)

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



What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer 
~~~~underwater~~~~
watching the shoreline...

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Observance
by Michael R. Burch

Here the hills are old and rolling
carefully in their old age;
on the horizon youthful mountains
bathe themselves in windblown fountains...

By dying leaves and falling raindrops,
I have traced time's starts and stops,
and I have...

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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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Early morning dawn July
"Mallory"  Damian whispered, sliding 
Closer to her. "Mallory" he Whispered 
Again gently caressing. She wanted
To say stop. It was to late
he moved quite quickly. He spread
Like wild fire. Soon consuming her.
The...

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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...

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I want to tell you the story of my life.  I was born in a barn at dawn.  There
were eight of us but I was the only one with spots.  I was...

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“Now behind the eyes and secrets of the dreamers in the streets rocked to sleep by the sea, see the titbits and topsyturvies, bobs and buttontops, bags and bones, ash and rind and dandruff and...

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[This poem 'No God Of  Mine' was seemingly confounding readers as
to its meaning. Ordinarily, if I felt a poem wasn't  cutting it, I'd delete
it, but on this occasion, I've been asked to explain it... so here goes.]


By...

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Skin of Terror
- Daniel Henry Rodgers

(The stage lights come up slowly on Michael's face, which is crisscrossed with wrinkles from his fuming anxiety. He peers out into the gloominess at the wheel and tightly clutches...

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FIRE! UPDATED 1998 IN 2021 BY COVERUPS PAYOFFS
GARGANO FAKED HIS OWN DEATH MEMORIAL DAY 1999
THE CAR BOMB THAT ENDED MY LIFE AT LEAST AS I'VE KNOWN IT ON THIS DAY THE SKY WAS SO BLUE...

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February 29th, 2024

Alternately titled: 111th leap year since 1582
the year Pope Gregory XIII world leader
(i.e. essentially paterfamilias among
Roman Catholic flock)
timely maneuvered around calendrical rock
and hard space implementing
viable system tracking years ad hoc
out of sync and...

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Introduction: once again I incorporate 
my trademark penchant 
to fabricate fictitiously
portions of the following poetic endeavor
can you care to 
discern fact from fiction?

Attempts at lifelong friendships and holy matrimony...

Shot thru with figuratively cankerous nub,
cuz yours...

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Once again it’s Saturday; the day when footy reigns supreme.
The Dogs are up against the Cats, the premier favoured team,
but I’ve got no doubts the mighty Dogs will surely cope with that.
I couldn’t think of...

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Young Timmy saw Jim walking down the street.  Timmy considered a quick retreat, but steadied himself with a shrug.  Timmy dreaded the sight of Jim, a teenage bully and wanna be thug, who...

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In the darkness of the night, 
a ruby gleams 
to contrast a slumbered eye awakened 
to feeling, 
reflection, light, 
Lady "Genie", eyes aglow
like a beast, in mid-stride,
lost in her midnight dreams is clothed in a...

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Prelude to what…..

I see you,  /  you / yes, come into my…… 
laboratory of alchemist mystical languaging.
where arsenic spills into the whirlpool of thought 
and savage syntax shatter like glass on concrete.

Where Titans...

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War shapes the warriors it touches, leaving behind vestiges that linger in their lives long after the battlefield fades from view. In Recon Marines: Searching for the Real Enemy, we are thrust into the unrelenting...

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What is a life to you?
Do you wake up to love
imagine a future with someone?
A wife or a husband,
a child or ten?
An exaggeration,
but love is different to everyone.
Do you have a cat or a dog,
that...

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“Upon Waking”


Slumber has its upsides 
while the outside runs around
like a split fowlyard, 
cacophonous 
pecking at each other 
and at the ground…

Elsewhere, 

like dull background noise
through the fog of dream 
the sound of the gamble...

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Many British thermal units* later

Vice linkedin to carnal flesh this writer, 
(a married heterosexual doofus, – 
whose alter egos 
named and highlighted courtesy 
Gallant and Goofus) attones
to heat these lovely bag of bones
amazingly graceful human...

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Youth

When orchids bloom in beauty life's aglow
to hold emotions locked in deep repose
in young desire and love warm thoughts will show.
Affection holds its ardor as it grows
to burn inside young hearts in evening tide.
In darkest...

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