Long Tropical Poems

 Translation of Eric Mottram’s Poem 33 in Interrogation Rooms by T. Wignesan

33.  on a vu un homme courir/ de la scène de crime un homme est maintenant en train d’aider/ la police avec...

Read More

Instruction
by Michael R. Burch

Toss this poem aside
to the filigreed and the wild tide
of sunset.

Strike my name,
and still it is all the same.
The onset

of night is in the despairing skies;
each hut shuts its bright bewildered eyes.
The...

Read More

As to the this and the that and the how and the why,
    I pass no judgement on the tale at hand.
And leave it to scribes to much later decide
  ...

Read More

Prose Poems II
by Michael R. Burch

These are prose poems (is that an oxymoron?) and experimental poems...



briefling
by Michael R. Burch

manishatched, hopsintotheMix, cavorts, hassex (quick!, spawnanewBrood!); then, likeamayfly, he’s suddenly gone: plantfood.



bachelorhoodwinked
by Michael R. Burch

u are charming...

Read More

I met with some bankers in fine textured suits.
I struck a deal quick. (I had such a knack.)
I offered rare cacti and tropical fruits – 
a cure-all for things that ail your back.

I served 'em...

Read More

Face to the sky,
Breath of the Caribbean
Woven with earthy Autumn,
Saturates the alveoli of my lungs,
Pouring raw impulses into the neurons of
My pleasure centers, so triggering a myriad of
Memories ... the demurring requiem to summer tide...

Read More

February 29th, 2024

Alternately titled: 111th leap year since 1582
the year Pope Gregory XIII world leader
(i.e. essentially paterfamilias among
Roman Catholic flock)
timely maneuvered around calendrical rock
and hard space implementing
viable system tracking years ad hoc
out of sync and...

Read More

I know you're not here

but you are in my heart 

so 

you are always with me

i'll just slip into you

with these words.
 
I know 
there are mountains
dwarf the cities below 
peaks that stride above the...

Read More

Each year as Christmas rolls around, as I buckle under the pressure and stress of shopping for gifts for people that already  have everything, I find myself remembering that Christmas of 1954.

Dad had joined...

Read More

When we set out on a road trip
We didn’t stick to the old script
And were gladly amazed
And rarely unfazed
Hitting strange towns though some were skipped

We started from Thatsnot, OK
Which was more or less ok
But then...

Read More

Huge fluffy clouds began to form over 
Sanibel Island as the salted gulf splashed 
against the rocks around the lighthouse 
coastal waters rose up as a calming coolness 
carried this gentle warm breeze over to...

Read More

My jubilant latent, nascent poetic tribute to black history month

Which acknowledgement ought to be year round,
similar to altruistic, humanistic, and philanthropic
unconditional acceptance and respect
crafted with the following words 
mostly written January 23rd, 2023,
cuz I, (a...

Read More

Nascent poetic tribute to black history month...
crafted before onset when people of color  
got acknowledged for twenty eight or nine days
depending if leap year occurred. 

Though I yam Caucasian,
rightful to honor most bitter
racist genocidal...

Read More

After drenching biblical rainfall...
verdant green acres covered the planet of the apes
like a petticoat junction
donning barrel of skinny dipping monkeys.

Once drought stricken vast landscape
far as the eye could see
suddenly flush with promise
of budding new shoots
and...

Read More

Choose unironically ripping off a film to be ironic
Choose now because then will never be enough
Choose puff puff puff puff puff pass because you’ll never have enough
Choose feeling guilty in the morning because it’s better...

Read More

Every second, every minute, every single thought about you
Wonders of this still could be too good to be true
Fluttering in my heart, palpitations go amiss
I yearn for the touch of your skin, and I constantly...

Read More

There remains,
among cherished riff-raff,
old trope
tropical wet and warm
reproducing images,

Sadly resilient
and madly resonant,

About organic holes
and tumescent poles,
full-flowering 
young
green feminists
of feckless zero-empty wombs,
glacier valley lows
merely reflecting
volcanic mountain peaks

1's and 0's
blushing co-binaries 
of upright monotheistic YangPower
never
ever yielding to...

Read More

The inky black water sucks her in further
As she descends into the black depths of the abyss
Cloying dark swirls cover her head as soundlessly it reaches
Possessing her every inhalation – exhalation - it envelopes her...

Read More

Yours truly embarks on wild goose chase after elusive pot of gold

alternately titled: incorrigible lottery dreamer
big plans to relocate self and spouse
to some tropical island paradise
by the dashboard light
(the above line credited
to musician named Meatloaf)
upon...

Read More

Ah... methinks I could sleep forever

Basking in a supine position
with eyes wide shut
while the space heater churns out
fast moving molecules of heat
solitudinarian drowsy thinker fêted
by miniature fantasy 
of tropical island paradise
accompanying and populating slumber
courtesy flickering,...

Read More

Poet's Pre-Notes: A poem from my 8th week in a Stanford continuing education class offered on the internet, a study of free verse and structure. The poem writing technique is to write as unconsciously as...

Read More

My nascent poetic tribute to black history month

more apropos and alternately titled: 
praise to thee people 
of variegated melanin color,
whose immense understated improvements
and enhancement of webbed wide world
worth more than paltry words
of yours truly can...

Read More

It was a clear crisp morning around 
11 am or so konw one could be seen for miles 
There was a diner sign hanging off it's post and 
blinking from a shortage in the wires...

Read More

We all have our hopes, and I certainly did have mine,
I was longing for the love, of someone I thought divine.

Whenever he walked by, it seemed for me time stood still,
And I grew as speechless,...

Read More

Personal vicissitudes pronounced irrepressible self loathing

Ever since mine late boyhood
when unstoppable coded 
cellular processes did segue
I experienced abhorrence
toward yours truly,
an extremely introverted kid,
whose parents nor siblings
(one younger and older sister) could
not arouse him 

out of...

Read More