Long Trample Poems

See
by Michael R. Burch

See how her hair has thinned: it doesn’t seem
like hair at all, but like the airy moult
of emus who outraced the wind and left
soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes
are...

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You Never Listened
by Michael R. Burch
 
You never listened,
though each night the rain
wove its patterns again
and trembled and glistened...
 
You were not watching,
though each night the stars
shone, brightening the tears
in her eyes palely fetching...
 
You...

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For Pharaoh still exalts himself and thinks he’s in control,
But if he won’t release my folk, he’ll pay a heavy toll.
Tomorrow I will bring down hail like Egypt’s never seen,
On plants and trees and man...

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THE INNER CHAMBER

Please.  Stop holding back on me.

Like a child standing at the neighborhood ice cream truck, arm outstretched, eyes huge, mouth watering.

I stand here longing to slip underneath your decades of cold-rolled steel...

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Starlight and Moonlight II

These are poems about starlight and moonlight, moons and stars, dreams and visions, illuminations and intimations …




Deliver Us...
by Michael R. Burch 

for my mother, Christine Ena Burch

The night is dark and scary—
under...

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Headlights messaged through midnight windows 
Curtainless glass unable to subdue the urgency 
Car obtained in street nearby was theirs temporarily
Three hour drive to ship leaving island next morning

Two sixteen year old girls barely registered surprise...

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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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Let your skeletons out of the closet and let them dance with mine, the way that our bodies once moved together in an unspoken of time
I am one of these skeletons, maybe your biggest one...

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I feel like my life is a clean slate
When I’m reaching out to you
I feel you lingering in my thoughts...
You stitched up my insecure frame of mind 
And stitched up the little pieces of memory...

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No One
by Michael R. Burch

No One hears the bells tonight;
they tell him something isn’t right.
But No One is not one to rush;
he lies in grasses greenly lush
as far away a startled thrush
flees from horned owls...

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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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My life started with rain,
the steady stream of drops,
hitting the trees gently
and ending its descent to our world
on the wet pavement.
I am on the sidewalk, 
sheltered by a makeshift roof and 
a border of trees.
The...

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Though I wrote no book 
attention summoned to look 
at following--->>>

Urgent message – to send Mephistophelian madman back to stone age

predicated upon past and present, I gauge
will offer ogre golden opportunity 
to rewrite anarchistic playbook...

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(continued from, "An Epistle Warning against Melancholia: an Allegory--Part I," where somewhere in late 18th-century Europe a friend, Laetitia, by way of a letter warns her beloved girlfriend, Euphoria--a young, gay and unsuspecting mistress--against the...

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IF EVER I HAD A COUNTRY: LXXIX -  Bang! Bang! Who Shot Me Down like an Un-licensed Dog !

IF ever I had a country, a country certainly 
not subject to the whistle of a...

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Spring — a life anew

Prodding rays of warming glow,
sunshine.
Crusted ice and snow
slowly melting into trickling drops. 
First to bloom
a crocus blue, a tulip tries to rise.

How long the wait
and freezing rain
chilled the weary bones.
Heat up...

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Fukuda Chiyo-ni Haiku

Fukuda Chiyo-ni was a Japanese poet and painter of the Edo period, also known as Kaga no Chiyo.

Having seen the moon
I can bid this planet
farewell.
—Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

The moon settled
in...

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"Our Sacred Lady of the Divine Perfect Imperfections" - Part 1

Our Sacred Lady of the Divine Perfect Imperfections
is worthy of our fervent introspection
constantly, equatiously
for SHE is “You”
and “You” is SHE
this is no mischievous 
chicanery, 
this...

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Antinatalist Poems

Habeas Corpus
by Michael R. Burch 

I have the results of your DNA analysis.
If you want to have children, this may induce paralysis.
I wish I had good news, but how can I lie?
Any offspring you...

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I am quite content with my little mowing machine; it does the job for me.
But not my crazy neighbors whom I used to call my friends, briefly…
Now they’ve become competitive, crazed out, monsters looking for...

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Scurrying on my way home, a little leaf catches my eye, and I am compelled yet again to slow down.

a whirlwind of thoughts
compete with swaying of trees~
lone leaf on my shoe

I am not sure exactly...

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He rushed in the office with his bag in one hand, and coffee in the other hand; steam is shooting from his coffee cup, and he has eaten more than a dozen doughnut.

 What on...

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UNQUOTABLE QUOTES: XLV - Tongue teasing epigrams

A stitch in time can save an arranged marriage and stave off a family feud, not to mention everlasting vendettas.
Still waters run deep in sleep.
When the hens begin to...

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OH! We must all be aware and we shall all know about the vicious dogs of warfare!
They trample underfoot and shed innocent blood and they shall not escape the wrath of almighty God! For He...

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Joel just collapsed into the brown dirt,
clutching his face in both of his palms,
cried,”Running Moon, the day that you ‘died,’
was the day my life started to go wrong!

“I drank for days, mourning for you so,
It...

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