Long Unreadable Poems

Juvenilia: Early Poems IX

These are early poems of mine, written in my teens as a high school student and during my first two years of college.

Shock
by Michael R. Burch

It was early in the morning of...

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For All That I Remembered
by Michael R. Burch

For all that I remembered, I forgot
her name, her face, the reason that we loved ...
and yet I hold her close within my thought:
I feel the burnished weight...

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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems - IV - Primo Levi

Shema
by Primo Levi
translation by Michael R. Burch

You who live secure
in your comfortable houses, 
who return each evening to find
warm food, 
welcoming faces...

consider whether this...

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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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Erlenkönig pulled the chair out beside Aisling's and sat on the side of the table.  A large, luxuriant and ornate chair headed the end of the table,
several places down from where he sat...

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Day 1:
Indistinguishable from the next
Yet placed in a pocket
Decisions made to be kept
Yet I feel I give nothing
For I am a stone after all
It's my life's work
To ponder my worth 
So tiring I mostly sit...

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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~          

          Welcome to the land of 
         ...

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Memories felt after so long repressed
Now burn like a fire inside of my chest 
They flow now as ink from the tip of my tongue 
For the father I lost when I was too young...

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Pointed Art
Michael R. Burch

The point of art is that
there is no point.
A grinning, quick-dissolving cat
from Cheshire
must have told you that.

The point of art is this—
the hiss
of Cupid’s bright bolt, should it miss,
is bliss
compared to Truth’s...

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What makes a speech out of words,
I have just washed the tombs of lords.
Oh, what’s my knot?
What’s my knot?

You can judge the theme not.
Words, trickle of the destructed thoughts
Shaped in a dim light.
No matter what...

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ZEN DEATH HAIKU XI

These are my modern English translations of Japanese Zen Death Haiku. 

Above the garden
the camellia tree blossoms
whitely...
—Uejima Onitsura, loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Moonlit hailstones: 
the night hawks return.
—Uejima Onitsura, loose translation...

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Broken World



When the lies were injected 
into the veins of innocence
blue feathered quills 
dipped their nibs 
into the ink of golden stories
stalked by trolls 
dragging their fountain tips of liquorice

like shining razor blades
blunt remarks stinging...

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I can't expect to wake up everyday and do something I hate before I'm even part of the rat race. 

How am I expected to cope with that as a human child....not a that human...

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              To wallow in the fires is a tempting 
surrender.
A swan dive into the maelstromic implode 
of mushroom clouds, return to 
sender....

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Sun Poem
by Michael R. Burch

I have suffused myself in poetry
as a lizard basks, soaking up sun,
scales nakedly glinting; its glorious light
he understands—when it comes, it comes.

A flood of light leaches down to his bones,
his feral...

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Paternal grandmother's headstone - Beth David, Elmont, Long Island

Shaindel (Sadie), variant of Shana Harris
died May 13th, 1959 exquisitely chiseled
alphanumeric characters legibly engraved
sepulchral casket entombing lovely bones
deoxyribonucleic acid repurposed into me
Matthew Scott Harris patronymic protector,
when I...

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I can see it in your eyes 
your brain ticks over 
search supplies 
the lie with fall cover 
Because mother always used to say be aware of those around you 
their reaction to your actions...

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"Phoenix Wings"



Suede heart turns tin star 
wears the shining part
on the outside stitched up

blue silk now 
glistening

tears in time forgotten 
justice in the frozen cut glass 
criminal, wasted memories

clairvoyant signs 
electric lines writes and 
truth...

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Volcano

The mistress of the unknown covered with a strange material
Residues of what's left after an erruption, looks like surgical
Reaction of the unwanted visits, the peace of a ' criminal '
Leaving behind the rests of a...

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Premonition
by Michael R. Burch

Now the evening has come to a close and the party is over ...
we stand in the doorway and watch as they go—
each stranger, each acquaintance, each unembraceable lover.

They walk to their...

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A freak of literature 
Designed by those mad poets 
But escaped the lab: 
the English classroom,
Its me G the hybrid word:
With added punctuation and 
bold character so im strong- 
Arial be my font family but...

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Written: September 23, 2023
_____________________________________________________________

In a faraway land, as the sky hits the field,
Amidst a land of shades, a country concealed,
Realms of anguish wrapped around the woods,
As the idioms of conflicts to value their goods. 

In...

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Top notch legal scholar Erin Go Braw
     (less concerned about being fair versus
     abominable, irrevocable, and execrable
     unforgivable oversight most holy "M" &...

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in an
          angst-                    saturated
   ...

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I bought my house for its mirrored walls 
in the master bath from which you could fancy 
yourself as a forties' film star, your flawless 
body soaking in billowing suds, or stepping into 
a glassed-in...

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