Long Tycoons Poems

Limericks III - Grab Bag

Being a peace activist, I once wrote a limerick in an attempt to stop needless wars:

Of Tetley’s and V-2's
(or "Why Not to Bomb the Brits")
by Michael R. Burch

The English are very...

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Poems about the Coronavirus II


This World's Joy
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters...

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What Good Are Our Tears?
by Michael R. Burch

What good are our tears?
They will not spare the dying their anguish.
What good is our concern
to a child sick of living, waiting to perish?

What good, the warm benevolence...

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Sonnets XC-XCVII

Artificial Smile
by Michael R. Burch

I’m waiting for my artificial teeth
to stretch belief, to hollow out the cob
of zealous righteousness, to grasp life’s stub
between clenched molars, and yank out the grief.

Mine must be art-official?zenlike Art?
a...

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THE CITY AND THE STATE OF PLAY TODAY

No one worries about morals today 
They follow the rules they create
So to them all is ok
Those on the outside looking in 
Are the only ones feeling queasy...

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I can't sleep.
Or, I can
and did
for three hours
but I continue waking
into a Stephen King nightmare
too real to ignore
because I feel isolated
in this quagmire
of hopeless history.

In this my collective nightmare,
President Trump goes to Saudi Arabia
like Mr....

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A lad is stopped by roving cops, who shoot in disregard.

His face is black, he’s on his back, a breeze is breathing hard,

he bleeds and dies, his mama cries, the screaming sky is scarred,

the sheriff...

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You ask, Do I believe in miracles? Have I seen healing outside the Bible?
Is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit accessible –
To me and you, beyond the Book of Acts, after Pentecost -
Is the age...

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Mother of Cowards
by Michael R. Burch aka "The Loyal Opposition"

So unlike the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land,
Spread-eagled, showering gold, a strumpet stands:
A much-used trollop with a torch, whose...

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From the onset you become
The supernatural puppeteer behind power
The chieftain of the tycoons
The moral and immoral nous
The sheepherder of the multiverse
Why tenuring freudalism and captivity?
Thy sheep in topsided race
Like asymmetric scale

Yesterday celebrates your uniqueness
Before acculturation...

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There was a time years ago when the City showed its best.
With majestic hills and flowered streets, the Paris of the West.
Where business types and techno geeks discuss their politics.
While artsy fartsy folks and Hipsters...

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A back flipping coconut is very very amusing at a ball but ball pits are moving around so one must surely wear wellingtons or a pair of anglers' waders when jumping across such multicoloured curves....

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They weave, they weave
They weep and they weave
Smarting under the persecuting whips -
Verbal, literal or carnal whips
They weep, they weep.

Locust-like they swarm the streets
To reach the factories before the sun settles well
In its diurnal rounds.
There...

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Everybody bears a price tag
Claim tycoons with bottomless purses
With a plethora of dollars to flash and flag
About to entice simpletons who deem their lives struck by curses

Inserted in their DNA
Generations ago
Which render them incapable to...

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"You matter," she said. Those two words. I had been feeling really down of late, like a worm that isn't even worthy of becoming bait. "Listen," I argued, "There are eight billion people on this...

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Here in Chicago, Illinois the landscape is flat
  No hill or vale to break the monotony
A concrete jungle downtown, surrounded by highway
  Leading to endless cornfields south of the metropolis

The suburbs and exurbs'...

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While watching the news on Television

Little boys play soldiers.
Soldiers fight for freedom
Big boys playing a deadly game.

He was a young American soldier,
handsome smart, strong , caring
and a wonderful lover.
I was young and foolish, 
away from...

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Sinister snarling swindling scandalous scoundrels secretly slither shamelessly
Implicitly interrogated ‘bout innermost insidious illegitimate impertinences
Ghastly Grotesque grimacing gumption gorging gruesome gimmicky gossip
Netherworld’s nauseating narcissistic nefarious nature nibbling at naiveté

Obnoxious oppressors outrageously ostracizing offspring to oblivion
Facetiously fondling...

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TWENTY thousand years after the Lamb.
New nocturnal pulpits here and there,
While He said be united in His name.
Deliverance from misery and maladies,
We now preach. No more poor in spirit?
Abortion, woman-woman, nakedness…we now decree.
No more Sodom...

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Dear little children gather near
there is something I must share
be so silent and lend me your ears
THERE AIN'T NO SANTA CLAUS!

Your mom and dad work so hard
they pay for Christmas on a credit card
so under...

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This sudden warped concern for ampule, 

the cruel force of world dictators,

these psychological taunt of the media, 

Nescient chemists controlling our minds,  

tycoons uttering lies in egoistic motives,

these pretentious drama of publicized jabs,
 
enhancing...

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Dr Zhivago is not Putin 
Nature yes, it does its own thing it will never be tamed and behave 
in a predictable way. Outside mild rain falls there is no wind and 
the weather is...

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Black, Shiny Shoes.  
The EU dictatorship has crushed Hellas Germany and the banks won- 
The French to their helped the Greeks writing a new tax system and 
for once the tycoons have to pay...

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THE HIJACKER WHO WAS HIJACKED

The mission is the pursuit of Caicedo,
the race has been on since the January set-go,
keepin' the paparazzis tongue in closed bridle.
Call Liverpool Big Jax of the Jungle,
and Chelsea, Richie, with cash...

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Standing underneath the tree
                  Set and ready, just for me
Christmas morn held my surprise
    ...

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