Long Tongued Poems

State of the Art (III)

These are my "ars poetica" poems: the ones about the art and craft of writing poetry in a modern world that doesn't always recognize the artists or their work. 



Come Down
by...

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Sonnets LXI-LXX

Erin
by Michael R. Burch

All that’s left of Ireland is her hair?
bright carrot?and her milkmaid-pallid skin,

her brilliant air of cavalier despair,
her train of children?some conceived in sin,

the others to avoid it. For nowhere
is evidence of...

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Poems about Poems IV

The Toast
by Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and gray,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak...

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“ANTE BELLUM”


BEIGEBest served where it can’t be seen
On Stirling Silver platters
With redruM narcotics
Delivered by sharp Blood-Red
Well-mannered talons
Strutting in sleek wet rolling tight-skirted
Long French Silk Stockinged legs all the way down to 
Lethal Six Inch stilettos...

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Poems about Poets I


The Wonder Boys
by Michael R. Burch

for Leslie Mellichamp

The stars were always there, too-bright cliches:
scintillant truths the jaded world outgrew
as baffled poets winged keyed kites—amazed,
in dream of shocks that suddenly came true ...

but...

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"The Reptilian Anthropocene"



The Reptilians
war daily 
enrobed in their
stiff distinction suits
rainbow coloured badges 
pinned to their lapels
they beat their breasts 
and oily palms
profiting from all 
the soft-boiled 
foxes on the run
cerebral cortex bound
thinking they are free-willed
and...

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Poems about Poets VII

Gallant Knight
by Michael R. Burch

for Alfred Dorn and Anita Dorn

Till you rest with your beautiful Anita,
rouse yourself, Poet; rouse and write.
The world is not ready for your departure,
Gallant Knight.

Teach us to sing...

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Good mother, bad mother, locked in a war,                           ...

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THE CITY AND THE STATE OF PLAY TODAY

No one worries about morals today 
They follow the rules they create
So to them all is ok
Those on the outside looking in 
Are the only ones feeling queasy...

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Summer's late,
I am left here to die, 
Stuck in a phase, 
And time wouldn't fly. 
Asking me to change, 
What do I be?
More like you?
What's in it for me?
Do I be a two faced man,
Or...

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"Chaos Theory"



The Message is sent on a breeze
Fire eats the wounds of a Mother

Her skin blisters
cracks and peels 

Her children inhale a different pollen
Drones bark messengers like Bowie's Diamond Dogs

Tables now turn
machines are giving orders...

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No matter what you've done
 in the past
I was in Idolatry, greed, covetousness, love of money, 
I was Complaining, not loving God full of gluttony, 
High-mindedness, disobedience, lover of self, 
GOD LOVES ME

I put family,...

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Beware the wrath of the Northern Polar boogie man, 
The Anti-Clause, a legendary beast of nightmarish voracity,
From folklore mythology, a dark creature of demonic prowess,
Lurks in the hidden shadow realm, in a freezing forbidden zone,
Of...

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Pandora's BoX

Whom to blame?
What woman now walks, the lethal ancestress
Of the original ancestress, that one named 
Pandora, that one with the gleaming eyes that said:

   "I want; I need, to know?"

Where is she...

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Ooh a scented grape graphic. Now that's wisdom. Contained a logical pattern in a juice cup. Heron haven heaping. Wisdomstic of a Judas flaw. Consealed in Sanskrit. Heavenly heaping cream on a very large bun....

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Here rests the realm of the
thorn-tongued truth ~ 
a mortal mirage of doomed pentacles,
where forks and kettles speak
  the language of witchery,
  the dialects of the diabolical,
listening as feral desires fill
the aquatic hues...

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The oldest citizen of Soup Creek, Nopaul E. Ticks, posed to show his support for the town council's ban on politicians.

I hear that nasty Trump feller, wants to stump in Soup Creek.
He wrote to Mayor...

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All regenerative energies,
like sunlight
and Permaculture Design
and Restorative Justice
and love
and compassion
and empathy
and contextual intelligence
and multicultural mediation
and non-violent communication,
are interdependently One,
in original embryonic matriarchy.

So all degenerative entropic trends
are separating identities
segregating
decaying
reverting back into One
timelessly eternal Source,
regenerative,
as positive health...

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A translucent but lucid idea is best held by a pea in a pod. A pea in a pod is protected whilst in the pod but shelling the peas means that the pea would then...

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Poems for Poets X
Poems about Poets X



Sinking
by Michael R. Burch

for Virginia Woolf

Weigh me down with stones ...
   fill all the pockets of my gown ...
      I’m going down,
...

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There you are 
you’re sitting down 
feet planted firmly on the ground
staring at a blank screen 
wrists held just so, 
your anxiously poised
ready to go 
writing all that you have inside
your blinking 
liquorice windows

All you...

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POEMS FOR POETS X

US Verse, after Auden
by Michael R. Burch

“Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.”

Verse has small value in our Unisphere,
nor is it fit for windy revelation.
It cannot legislate less...

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I climbed atop the mountains,
To find the Elevated One,
He is in one of it's summits,
Living all alone.

I found him under a tree,
Can't be found by anyone,
I sit beside him,
Tired and done.

I began to speak,
"O' Elevated...

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I wrap myself 
in feather-boa-fantasies of his dreams
sinuous pinot-grigio-me; 
X-rated and never sated
dancing to rock ‘n roll— 80’s dated
...my floorshow our foreplay

welcome to the conjugal jungle 
of not-so-rusted lust
sixty-something-shapely...
25th anniversary groom croons naughty thoughts;
“you could...

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Sappho Translations III by Michael R. Burch


Bed the bride with the beautiful feet,
or bring her to me!
—Sappho, fragment 103b, translation by Michael R. Burch

I long helplessly for love. Gazing into your eyes not even Hermione...

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