Long Tors Poems

I believed that I was rural … that I lived in country style,
where the city was close handy … that big distance was a mile.
Trains and buses ferried daily; a freeway ran close by …
comforts...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems VII

These are early poems I wrote as a boy and as a teenager.

The Leveler
by Michael R. Burch

The nature of Nature
is bitter survival
from Winter’s bleak fury
till Spring’s brief revival.

The weak implore Fate;
bold men...

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Stars fall under failing skies...stars fall...stars fall...
But stars do not cry.
Into Ochs valley, through the Vale of White Horse...prancing 
besides a Dragons Hill;
It was here that a Roundhead - did a Royalist Cavaliers blood in...

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POEMS ABOUT SCIENCE 4: BIRTH/EVOLUTION

Simultaneous Flight
by Michael R. Burch

*The number of possible connections [brain] cells can make exceeds the number of particles in the universe. — Gerald Edelman, 1972 Nobel Prize winner for physiology and...

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To the legendary teacher I pay tribute
For imparting live voices to the mute
You paid gratitude
To the multitude
On the mountain top you stood
And all the heads understood
You never said ‘Never’
As admired in Geneva;
Tremendous work for real
Remains...

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TEMPEST

Twin limestone tors thrust up through valley floor
Like isles or icebergs in a calm flat sea
Deep green save where shear rock can hold no spore
To spawn in fecund niche a vine or tree

Midday and all...

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Springing free from glistening 
Fronds
The summers heat leaps for 
Height;
Whilst drifting obscurely far
Above 
A distant lark now hangs in 
Flight.

Floats down his sweet trill,
Accompanied by joyous and
Uplifting revelry,
Over the black crows nasal 
Calls;
Whose draped shadow,
contemplating...

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In the winter of 1873, Alfred Packer was hired to guide a prospectin' trek.
In the San Juans of Colorady they'd heard of gold that they wanted to check.
Alfred claimed that in Colorady minin' camps he'd...

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Majestic and yet strangely innocent, they are silent sentinels of the past 
Rock holding fast a million memories though the surface shows the only scars 
The range of ranges, old today and ancient tomorrow, these...

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Wrinkles and twinkles and wind colored cheeks
callused old feelings well hidden

Take a ride in Old Vermont across the covered bridges
Wander through the woods of Maine on down east running ridges 
Stop and face the hard...

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I know I’ve made a thousand journeys,
withstood the tests of time and foe
shed the dust and shouldered worries
struggled onward against the flow.

Unconforming, seldom bending
straight the path I ever took.
Challenge was my unending passion
contradiction I forsook.

I’ve...

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All across these scattered shining isles,
Framed inside a bright clasp of sapphire sea,
A softly persuasive wind that so beguiles,
Reaching gently out, thusly prevails unto me.
And in that wind that so insistently blows...
I hear tenderest words...

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Oh! Fleecy vagabond clouds scudding o'er this turbulent earth.
The things you must witness drifting about its expansive girth!
Arrayed in the heavens by that Benevolent One Immortal,
Such peace and beauty you bestow upon this restless mortal!

For...

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Oh, fleecy vagabond clouds scudding about this turbulent earth!
The things you must witness drifting o'er its expansive girth,
Arrayed in the heavens by that Benevolent One Immortal!
What peace and beauty you bestow upon this restless mortal!

For...

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HAIKU & TWO SENRYU
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


white sky... low the clouds
winter... stuck in a drift again
spring... where are you...
~~~
the bobbin dipper flies
below our secret rivers
spring... summer delight
~~~
ring ouzel... moorland
high craggy tors... upland moors
birding adventure
~~~
the avocet
fenland treasure... coastal dream
no...

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Oh, give me a home where majestic buffalo roam,
Where antelope graze and rushing streams foam!
A place where snow-capped mountains reach for the sky,
And gentle winds waft through blue spruce with soothing sigh!
Oh, give me a...

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Eternal granite, crystalline scree, agates, boulders, rise
to hills, towering tors,* mutinous mountains, endlessly growing
rising, lifted,  then toppled by the fiery rebirth of draconic lava**

Like the cracked shell of an avian egg***/ **** both molten...

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When solitary quests for TRANQUILITY I thirst, Pikes Peak I will ascend.
Ah! The SPLENDOR of that majestic mount nothing will e'er transcend!
As I mosey amongst its rugged tors and its towering heights,
I marvel at the...

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Summer sunsets o'er majestic Pikes Peak are a wonder to behold.
Unequaled hues gild the western sky in flaming red and gold!
Mere artists will never portray on canvas such a glorious sight.
Magnificent ivory clouds enhance the...

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Methinks all antediluvian Love was
Whiter than snows atop higher tors;
And with more troth dudes did kiss
Purer maidens for pleasanter bliss.

I deem Art shortly after Noah’s Ark
To have been of better-spun spark; 
And bards of far...

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