Long Trench Poems

Villanelles

The villanelle is a poetic form based on repetition, with a double refrain. 



Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day, 
with the...

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State of the Art (II)

These are my "ars poetica" poems about the art and craft of writing poetry. 



What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer 
~~~~underwater~~~~
watching the shoreline...

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A Vain Word
by Michael R. Burch

Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls
as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining
till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls
under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining
to the darkening...

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THIS DATA BREACH ALLOWED HACKERS TO STEAL PERSONAL INFORMATION ACCORDDING TO THIS I HAVE SEVERAL COMPANIES CEO FOR CRHIST SAKE ON DISABILITY IN HIDING FROM TWO ABUSIVE SPOUSE HOWEVER THIS CRUELTY HAS GATHERED FALSE INFORMATION...

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Some may say grand dragon others grand wizard either or it began in 60s everything was a bit chaotic the death of John f Kennedy Bobby Kennedy pope John XXlll my birth and Martin Luther...

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All things that scrub the ground like an old musty couch I saw you there seated with my very abusive ex husband wearing my under garments wrapped around your head I wondered just what you...

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Already was straight up the flame and steady
To speak no more, and yet away it went
Being the sweet poet to let it ready,

When another, which followed in ascent,
Made us to turn our eyes to top...

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Was the place where we climbing down the bank
Then arrived, alpine and, for what was there
Such as, that any eyesight would be shrank.

Similar to landslide that in side bare
Before Trento the Adige just smote,
Or for...

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In hell is called Malebolge a site
Completely made of ferrous color stones  
As almost all the rim around looks quite.

Of the malignant field the middle zones
Are the seat for a well much wide and...

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Greetings to those who would willingly seek admission to theater of the absurd. Zoltan Goliath and Otis Trench are masters of the avant-garde genre silent musicals for the imaginary stage, an art form sui generis....

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if you have taken the time to browse through this eclectic collection of self-indulgent foolishness, I hope you’ve been entertained by the quirkiness of its content, or at the very least, annoyed by the pervasiveness...

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Attitude with latitude

originally written January 19th, 2019
and tension defines the dynamic

Valiant prince sip pulled effort
rebuffed, snubbed, thumbed
courtesy eldest daughter
uncontested vainglorious woke
mine genuine apology,
viz sincerely yours truly
psyche asper paternal overture
toward aforementioned offspring
smitten with opprobrium
figuratively smacked upside...

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During the days before the 
Vacation began FIRST: there
was a thunderous knock on
The door of Damian Hakim's 
Residence. Damian Junior ran
To answer the door.  But
Damian was disturbed in his
den by the omenous knock.
Damian asked...

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You, Mariana—deepest trench of my knowing  
   I call you by name not to possess it
but because it is the only prayer  
   I have ever known how to...

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oh youth in all its callow shades
               is from our hope, precisely made
        ...

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{"To the ones who want to love me first, I don’t deserve you, and you don’t deserve me. It is vivid, enduring to every human, alluring at any foul play you want to scream what...

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February came in keeping with its ancient character a month of coldness, wetness and of thawing,
With departing frost and melting snow, February could possibly be called the wet season,
Maybe it's a time for floods and...

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What drives the stuff of life to persist and thrive?
What drives it to struggle so hard 
to be fittest to compete and survive?
What drives it to be the most fecund 
and best at seeding the...

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PTSD

Like rabbit in the headlight caught
I want to move, i know I ought
But quicksand stuck, I’m petrified 
My body still, arms laid by side
Stretched out on mattress, naked, soaked
From sweat in which my body’s cloaked
My eyes...

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The following is a collection of selected critiques of the work of Zoltan Goliath and Otis Trench from a variety of media outlets. The views expressed therein 
are entirely unsolicited, uncompensated and unexpurgated, 
representing the...

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The date
July Twenty Eight
The year, 1914
The War which we feared 
It began, something we could not foresee
This date, still haunters me
To this very day
Those bewailing screams
And those traumatic scenes
Words to do not to justify 
The...

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(World War One Poem)

Field Of Dreams

The World has stated our freedom,
the worms shall share a soldier's fear.
To look above my trench
is to be a thief in the night.
Life shall lurk, afraid of what is above.

My...

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Timothy had always been a man of laughing joy and conversation	


               -Friendship dialogue communication -


But now there was silence but for...

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When I was a girl, still on the island
I’d sit in the sand
and brood
and revel
in what I thought was utter enlightenment
a teenage rebel
with dime-store refinement
We were all this way, and there is no shame
In the...

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I am writing these letters to someone who no longer exists for me and if she ever did, she is lost somewhere in a past I can no longer visit. I write them for myself....

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