Long Turnstiles Poems

Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems IV
I wrote this around age 17.



Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.

I read the Bible from cover to cover at age eleven, ten chapters per day, at the suggestion...

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“But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet;Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.”
–“He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven,” by W.B. Yeats 

“I love you...

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"Artificial Iris"


Orwell was lurking in the background, somewhere;
the dream was eerily familiar, 
the words and their meanings, read in Syntax,
once read between pages of hardcopy in school 
were aptly ignored - 

however, 
our Overlords were...

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“Upon Waking”


Slumber has its upsides 
while the outside runs around
like a split fowlyard, 
cacophonous 
pecking at each other 
and at the ground…

Elsewhere, 

like dull background noise
through the fog of dream 
the sound of the gamble...

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Ghosts of the Sun Dance

1. The Path

A quest dating back through our history
Surpassing the flesh, a spiritual path
Human endurance, road to mystery
Dark trail winding through the gardens of wrath

It echoes through me, this deep ambition
Half...

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7/19/2019
This darkness is all I know, 
a widow's wardrobe of funeral clothes.
It hangs curtained under my eyes, 
the seed inside me grows allowing the little girl I was to die.

Insomniac sleep walking down the streets,...

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El Dorado
by Michael R. Burch

It's a fine town, a fine town,
though its alleys recede into shadow;
it's a very fine town for those who are searching
for an El Dorado.

Because the lighting is poor and the streets...

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It started out with one good boy,
A prehistoric, funny, little plushie toy,
His name was Gary, quite refined,
A murder floof with teeth aligned (yikes)!
They dressed him up in bowtie class,
He promptly bit a Swissman's—ahem—pass ;)
And now...

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 High-ho! High-ho! High-ho!
  it’s off to the pub and gig we go
 Willy Wonka ticket stubs in our hand
  on our way to see the band
 Climb the fence, jump the turnstiles
...

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Exit gate C opened up,
And the followers flood
Turnstiles overcrowding,
And fallen ticket stubs
A namesake for the estate
Just off of 23,
On the way to my place
In the southern United States
We've been distant, 
More than I envisioned,
But I...

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The many legacies I got
Your words that were spoke
A wakeup call being no joke
Utterance with tolerance
Life will have many turnstiles
But always use understanding during while
A detour might seem like a step back
But true vision is...

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As little boys 
we rode bikes
fast down the dunes,
on the vertical side
of Sand City

Big tires creased
deep furrows 
in the down-slope,
same as boats trailing
wakes upon the swell

At the leeward portion
of the great sand hills
the long bronze...

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(A lone voice speaks to a crowd of poets)

You do know everyone has their own magical style 

A style filled with such wild illustrious promises and kaleidoscope's of such deep vivid depths

For in poetry
No stone...

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Cloaked in grinding whispers
Such inhabitants feel
Their way
Gallop the day
By thrusting, trusting
Emblazoned minds
Envious looks deflected
As the clan stays on task
The full-time preoccupation
And execution of self-expression
Daring risks trickling
The vacant gutters
Thirsty for adrenalin
And a satisfying gulp
Of shattered dreams
Fashionable...

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Conundrum 

This confounding conundrum,
This continuing act of untying the pesky knots of existence,
This conniving, beating whirlwind of ever-swirling stresses,
Again served up on a plate mixed with legumes and angst,
Is taking all of us to the...

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Advancing from the earth to reach up high,
From passageways and subways emerging,
To strain with ribald fingers at the sky,
The virus of the rage distilled and surging.

To spray paint on the tiles cursed to grey,
Chipped and...

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Good bugger Clyde
Some look for the hell on the other side,
is it cause, yes cause for some mirth,
the sum of your sins and the good things you've done,
are balanced by time in the earth,
will the...

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This is our observed phenomenon report.
It appears the earth people have a strange sport.
They swing a wooden stick at a horsehide sphere.
When it goes over the fence, it’s “outta here”.
Move counterclockwise on a diamond-shaped field.
Numbers...

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I wake up, to celebrate the morning
    It's gonna be, a beautiful day
  Birds are singing, without warning
    I'll take my pills, last night or yesterday

  You...

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Its the sight waft of rotting flesh
That first hits you
While the smartly dressed
Smiling warden ushers you in,
Through narrow turnstiles

There are rows of enclosures
A maze of them, a maze of the wild
Its like a snapshot of...

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Match day is here, scarf around your wrist
Dad takes his lad the games never missed
Sea of red winds its way down the lane
Singing the songs that announce the game
The turnstiles click as they hurry inside
Narrow...

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I revisit this realm where your actions cannot,
Will not,
Stifle my nascence

Never enough,
Never enough

Forward, 
I tear away my onion skin
Embattled by a loathing humanity

I throw solaced emotions
Upon rusted turnstiles

Spinning round,
Right round,
Round,
Right round

But, you wouldn’t call me...

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These words that I write are like graffiti on walls passed by,
Large enough to admire,
But too fast to read,
Wanting to be somewhere quick,
Though stuck stopping to watch others drag on,
There's so many people that look...

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