Long Tightening Poems

My husband and I always enjoy visiting
GrandMother Eartha
on Mother's Day

She often shares
last night's dreams,
which too often follow rather disturbing peak experience themes

Because,
you know,
or maybe not because,
how would I know?

Dreams about Her Straight White AlphaMale trauma
were...

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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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Poems about Poems VI

The Board
by Michael R. Burch

Accessible rhyme is never good.
The penalty is understood?
soft titters from dark board rooms where
the businessmen paste on their hair
and, Walter Mitties, woo the Muse
with reprimands of Dr. Seuss.

The...

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Enough!
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that I don’t want to die;
I shall be glad to go.
Enough of diabetes pie,
and eating sickly crow!
Enough of win and place and show.
Enough of endless woe!

Enough of suffering and vice!
I’ve...

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Sonnets XXV-XXXII

Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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Sonnets X-XVI


Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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The Panther
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand...

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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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After Bréagán left the courtyard Erlenkönig began his own preparations for the upcoming fight.  He did not have time to think of the elf's self apprehension.  He knew that because of the chiding...

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The World has been playing a game
Oh what a shame
The world has been playing a game
This is insane
Leaders come and leaders go
Leaving me to continue the show
Leaders come and leaders go
Repeating the show of long...

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PSYCHOTIC JOURNEY
by
JOHN M. ARRIBAS


Feeling really beat,  I went to bed early last night
Suddenly awakened feeling something’s not right
There was total darkness, I was not in my room
Lying on a cold flooring, with a feeling...

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‘ In general, quantum mechanics does not predict a single definite result for an observation. Instead, it predicts a number of  different possible outcomes and tells us how likely each of these is. ‘

...

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Archaischer Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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I sit here waiting, waiting to go to a comfortable place where by  spirit can be at ease but you continue to play your dirty little game and I am going to bring the...

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Thump-thump of stiffening fish contorting
   In the bilge beneath the gunwale; 
 Lidless, bulging, reddened eyes, swivelling upwards, 
Protruding horribly from the straining sockets,
    Express stupefied amazement at inconceivable 
...

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Go ahead, you freaking coward, I thought. You drove all this way, with your new 6" GPS. Now you’re a bowl of jello who can't ring a bell? I took a deep breath and pushed...

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UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: Tongue-Teasers - XLIX

« Third Degree » is when you add « Insult to injury ».

If you take everything everybody says with a « pinch of salt », we’ll soon be able to drink...

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The rain birds keep hopping up and down the town
stamping the rain out of the ground with their wire feet but
they have little to compete and the sun is walking under my feet. They are...

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~***Part Two of Vanish Away the Anguish series…read Part One, Holding You, if you haven’t done so! Thanks***~

I’m not sad, okay? Would rather be smiling day to day
With gladness and happiness in addition 
To satisfaction...

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                                  The...

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If my rhymes rugged and clucking might be
As it would better fit to wretched hole
Above which are pointing all rocks to see,

I would express my concept as a whole
More clearly; but since I do not...

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A Poem Please Contest
Sponsor: John Lawless


in love with you forever
sorrow can heal wounds
through sickness and health

I grew that day…
I knew that day…
I had high hopes of a well spent future with him. Dreams of us...

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Pity Clarity
by Michael R. Burch

Pity Clarity,
and, if you should find her,
release her from the tangled webs
of dusty verse that bind her.

And as for Brevity,
once the soul of wit—
she feels the gravity
of ironic chains and massive...

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Exit my mind, so I can begin to grow up
My habits bite me hard in the ass again
Got a hangover by the horrible things I’ve done
I want to give up and hurt myself sometimes 

I’m...

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It is simple to laugh
at this sinister comedy,
ablaze with maddening duality.
A true scene of blood-thick bonds,
breaking never, but
somehow,
tightening, like a noose
around the throat of the last
living,
thinking organism,
ascending beyond basic self judgment,
embracing those strange strings
bound to...

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