Long Unencumbered Poems

Snapshots
by Michael R. Burch

Here I scrawl extravagant rainbows.
And there you go, skipping your way to school.
And here we are, drifting apart
like untethered balloons.

Here I am, creating "art,"
chanting in shadows,
pale as the crinoline moon,
ignoring your face.

There...

Read More

Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers III




Success
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

We need our children to keep us humble
between toast and marmalade;

there is no time for a ticker-tape parade
before bed, no award, no bright statuette

to be delivered...

Read More

Poems about Children IV

Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the...

Read More

Vampire Poetry

Pale Though Her Eyes
by Michael R. Burch
 
Pale though her eyes,
her lips are scarlet
from drinking of blood,
this child, this harlot
 
born of the night
and her heart, of darkness,
evil incarnate
to dance so reckless,
 
dreaming of...

Read More

Vampires
by Michael R. Burch

Vampires are such fragile creatures;
we fear the dark, but the light destroys them...
sunlight, or a stake, or a cross—such common things.
Still, late at night, when the bat-like vampire sings,
we heed his voice.

Centuries...

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

(Necessary, Sufficient – Why? How?)

Was the ‘Death of Christ’ needful? Can ‘Mind of God’ change?
Might the rainbow then signal ‘Repentance,’ a sign
God does grow and responds too, to changes wrath wrought?
Were there souls saved by...

Read More

Who is the man in the mirror that stares back at me through eyes of blue that can scarce seen behind lenses reflecting bright light?
Those eyes appear so young and vibrant, though cast behind a...

Read More

Why is it
as I watch The International CEO Actor
unilaterally Ordering disinvestment
in both domestic and Earth's cooperative-organic health,
I feel cold harsh January snowblow storms?

Dismaying cold
calling me toward hibernating silo of unencumbered sleep,
possibly to dream of sequestering...

Read More

While trickling thick amber honey
in my black decoffied coffee
I wonder why I never noticed
until just ever now

How refined white sugar
has monopolized my wider full-hued view
of more nurturing nutritional brown sugars
natural bio-resonant sweets
healthier sugar-phosphate cooperative relationships
as...

Read More

I was a celebrated, professional psychic, offering glimpses of rosy future;
And helping people work through problems, like pink moon, come sooner.

I had learnt to talk with the spirits, and also relate what they were saying,
To...

Read More

By Elton Camp

It would just be the end
If by words we do offend.

There’s the devil to be paid
If we call a spade a spade.

“Vertically challenged” means short.
“Horizontally challenged,” a fat sort.

“Nondiscretionary fragrance” means we stink.
“Living...

Read More

Back then, I’d never heard of Robinson Jeffers. My friend told us he was a famous poet and Tor House was where he lived with his family for much of his life. Definitely a stop...

Read More

On a park bench one sunny afternoon, a teenager sat next to a stranger,                     ...

Read More

Children's Poems IV

These are poems for children and poems about children and their mothers, fathers, grandmother, grandfathers and extended families. 



Boundless
by Michael R. Burch

for Jeremy

Every day we whittle away at the essential solidity of him,
and...

Read More

In a windswept vale the tree had spread its branches
Its shale like trunk defined by weather had many wounds
One in particular had hollowed inside this stanchion
Braced against pervading skies and silk-watered lagoons
So clearly defined a...

Read More

As I journeyed along the countryside on a makeshift road off the main highway, I came upon two elderly gentlemen sitting together at a fork of that road. I introduced myself to Jack Cave and...

Read More

REDEMPTION
One day, when my time was done,
I flew to the place where it was always sun,
And before me lay a fine array
Of palaces and fields where laughter held sway.

As I made my way to the...

Read More

Its so hard to be different in many ways unique, fresh, oblique
Confronting not conforming, defying not complying
Requires courage, conviction, confidence to be out there upfront emboldened.
Shedding the safe garments of compliance, the safe hat and...

Read More

The way to a girls heart 
                        seems to be sour candy?...

Read More

Striving for Political Correctness

By Elton Camp

It would just be the end
If by words we do offend.
There’s the devil to be paid
If we call a spade a spade.

“Vertically challenged” means short.
“Horizontally challenged,” a fat sort.
“Nondiscretionary fragrance”...

Read More

There lies before me a portrait most captivating and divine.                         ...

Read More

Fukuda Chiyo-ni Haiku

Fukuda Chiyo-ni (1703-1775) was a celebrated Japanese poet and painter of the Edo period, also known as Kaga no Chiyo.

CHIYO-NI POEMS ABOUT WOMEN AND DESIRE

How alarming:
her scarlet fingernails
tending the white chrysanthemums!
—Chiyo-ni, loose translation/interpretation...

Read More

Spain in Rain Falls



There’s something different
About the rain in Spain
And being an English man
And well versed in rainfall
I should know a thing or two
About rain

It still falls horizontal
Occasionally with a side to side wiggle
But it...

Read More

Drawn together, seemingly predestined, 
freewill nothing but illusion, 
a love so infinitely rare - 
a random wave of emotion 
to be surfed to its destination? 
No, a power sublime, 
surpassing that force binding the universe.

Were...

Read More