Long Tombstones Poems

Athenian Epitaphs

Mariner, do not ask whose tomb this may be,
but go with good fortune: I wish you a kinder sea.
—Michael R. Burch, after Plato

Does my soul abide in heaven, or hell?
Only the sea gulls
in their...

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THIS WAS BASICALLY ORCHESTRATED BY CIRO GARGANO IDEA MAKING DONALD PELLEGREN BELIEVE HE AND I WERE PARENTS AFTER A BREIF ENCOUNTER WITH HITMAN PELLEGREN HE BECAME OBSESSED WITH FATHERING A CHILD WITH ME HE RANTED...

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AFTER THE HIT ON MY LIFE MY LIFE CHANGED IN AN INSTANT A CICERO CAR BOMB IGNITED MY FACE IT WAS MEANT TO BLOW MY BRAINS OUT THROUGH MY EYE BALL GARGANO HAD EVER THING...

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THE REASON THE FBI WARNED ME MY LIFE WAS IN DANGER ARSON MURDER OF 9 CIRO GARGANO AND MY ABUSIVE EX HUSBAND TORCHED A BUIDING MY WEARING WIRES PREGNANT WAS USED TO HELP CIRO GARGANO...

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Such Tenderness
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza

There was, in your touch, such tenderness—as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable...

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Raid versus woe

Black flag(s) show up
on social media platforms
when potential homicidal maniac(s)
communicate(s) intent to strike
with ambush and ready
read - able, eager, and willing
to embark upon murderous rampage.

Prospective killer armed to the teeth
usually a young bucking...

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Graveyard love



My love is dead, the woman too, and love is an emotion. They are lost.
My feeling of love, which lived in me until now, but was discarded a long time ago.
I was dumped, trampled,...

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My terror began decades ago as I’d witnessed the plotting plans of taking a building down meetings conversations of how dynamite hand grenades including golf balls with draino finally dust pans to pour gasoline underneath...

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Mahmoud Darwish English Translations of Arabic Poems



Palestine
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
April's blushing advances,
the aroma of bread warming at dawn,
a woman haranguing men,
the poetry of Aeschylus,
love's...

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The flames of the furnace (well-travelled by wind
slowly glazing the rags of gray women chagrined
at the sight of a hair fleeing tresses now thinned) 
sometimes billow like waves flooding naves through the night,
when the lightning...

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"Burnt Aqua"



I can taste the sun
on my tongue
it spills down 
my throat
like burnt aqua
healing the beating frisson

I am ebony inside
shading in my shadow world
some somnolent soul
waking from slumber’s dream dance 
a small death in life...

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I tell you, it was a most memorable day;                          ...

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I have been reluctant to write this poem
Because I don't want to disappoint anyone
from going to heaven
I have been reluctant to write this poem
Because it has been a heavy burden
Yesterday  a little past noon
I...

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STAND

(17 pieces in honor of the "March For Your Life" youth)

                        ...

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major storm on the horizon reported from the "Fo'c'sle"

Though forever being a landlubber
a vision analogous to the nether world
deep within the bowels of the Earth
immensely distant from the sheltering sky
amidst a thick fog enveloped landscape
with...

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PFC ABBETT WAS MORE THAN JUST ONE OF OUR FELLOW MEMBERS HE WAS MORE THAN A VIETNAM VETERAN HE WAS THE COMPLETE PACKAGE HE WAS A HERO WORKING EFFORTLESSLY ON THE VETERANS MEMORIAL PARKS IN...

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* Content Warning: this poem touches on physical/emotional abuse*

        ~

        “dabble, dabble
         roiling...

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An image of the netherworld envisioned by a misanthrope

Mein kampf fraught re: 
emotionally/psychologically challenged 
impossible mission to cope
compared to classmates, I felt like a dope
and entertained escapist fantasies,
whereby Miss Rainbow 
(sixth grade student teacher),
though robbing...

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My husband and I both have been 
president's vice president's junior 
vice president including chaplin 
our life then was very busy full 
of volunteer working veterans 
helping veterans supporting local 
law enforcement and Rotc cadets...

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Peeps Need To Be Strong

alright drop the beats
got this fire burning hotter inside of me
don't want to get the best of me
sitting here drinking my forty why should I worry
everything today's a joke including the...

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A Harlem hoodlum, (albeit respectable)...

ready for night time in bedlam
after swallowing me favorite dram,
cuz reasonable rhyme resembles flimflam.

Whiling away his time playing solitaire...
initially prepped, honed, and crafted
November second two thousand and twenty
slightly tweaked February nineteenth
two...

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Happy two thousand twenty fourth  birthday Autumn - September twenty second

But first etymological climatological meteorological esoterica:

The word autumn (/'??t?m/) is derived from Latin autumnus, archaic auctumnus, possibly from the ancient Etruscan root autu-and has...

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As the cases keep rising
The Death toll crawls ever closer
Piercing the peak of the mountain
Toward the stars in the sky
Ready to come crashing down
As they burn out from the arrow's touch.


While the stars burn out...

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A hoodlum, (albeit respectable) in bedlam

whiling away his time playing solitaire...
November second two thousand and twenty
fast approaching the final countdown

With less than twenty four, twenty three, 
twenty two...  hours
harkening, heralding or (worse case scenario)
hindering...

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No winds are winnowing enough
To put a quill back in the hands of the dead poet
Or confidence back in the trachea of the strangled speaker
In me
Because no words are as vile
As no words at all
Where...

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