Long Vipers Poems

Auschwitz Rose
by Michael R. Burch
											
There is a Rose at Auschwitz, in the briar,
a rose like Sharon’s, lovely as her name.
The world forgot her, and is not the same.
I still love her and extend this sacred...

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The Cold Doorknobs 

I.
I am sure there will be that profound moment in time
when the dog out back will stop its incessant yapping,
Its unrelenting impulse to belch out its interminable wails, 
alas, to inform its...

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“Never forget 
everything Hitler did 
in Germany was legal.”
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

drop by drop lady liberty bleeds
red on white and blue
common sense vexatious 
verboten spins askew 

“We can and we must 
write in the...

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Woke up this morning
 on the wrong side of the tracks.
Left out leaving for all the right reasons
 and all the wrong facts.

Caught a ride with a traveling preacher
 in a beat up van.
Said he...

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Lost
for the children of the Holocaust and the Nakba
by Michael R. Burch

Something inescapable is lost—
lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight,
vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars
immeasurable...

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Just whisper in my ear and tell me what you hear
Whisper in my ear when you have something to share
Don’t talk too loud when the parrots are around
Just whisper in my ears so that the...

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Nexus had not yet reached the other side
When we started to enter in a wood
On which no any sign of pathway lied. 

No green fronds,, but grey dusky color stood;
No smooth branches, but all with...

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caught in the crossfire, of well-hidden snipers
that aim through the lens, of venomous vipers
paralysed by poison, blinded by spies
unarmed victims, enemies in disguise
shadows that taunt us, ghosts we let haunt us
vanish in the light, of...

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“Fire burning in a hill
The lines are rocky rough
Red angels wait to pick remains
The cindered shoulder
Of confused men” 
(Peter Murphy)
 





"On the Cindered Shoulders of Confused Men"



Close your eyes it was all just a bad...

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Ah Consuela! Invoking vast vistas for visions of green Spanish eyes,
I discern them again where she left me back then,
                 as we kissed when she parted, my friend.
Through those ruins I tread towards the footlights,...

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""AH, but their anger is not a small thing
Where their fury demands its own fullness
They stink of pain and death, long blacken wings"
Their tormenting stings pure hell nothing less."" -- RJL  quote-1973


See all
In Greek...

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 In agony in this flame on
"Intriguing drooling’s corpses conveying in hells caverns
Awaiting cooling sprinted saliva
 Make it stop eternity damnation
Bleeding souls gnashing and biting 
Demons engulfing, inviting
Broods of vipers, wrath to come

In agony in...

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III.
diamond sky
climbing up into
the mountain,
collecting the
scattered spoils of 
temptation; seeking 
rest from raising 
the green wood
roots of trees,

these broken kingdoms
will also perish, like 
collections of antique skin
to be buried
in the garden
of wonder
(alongside the urns 
containing...

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Whistle does the lone desert winds, flowing downwards from
Boot hill cemetery, in icy chilling breeze full of echoing voices,
From the past, begging for redemptions last chance of salvation.
Roll does the crimson tumbleweed, towards the ghost...

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Alligators, Aardvarks; Arctic fox and hare. Also Armadillos and Asses will be there!

Bobcats, Beavers, Boars; One Blue whale will do! Bovines and a Booby (maybe 2)!

Caribou & Camels; *Cavies & a *Coot; Cottontails, Chipmunks, Chinchillas...

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Trump poems and epigrams V

The prez should be above the law, he sez,
even though he’s no longer prez.
—Michael R. Burch



Mercedes Benz
by Michael R. Burch

I'd like to do a song of great social and political import....

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Come see my world where the body is found
After the feast of worms is done; come see torn apart
The life and prospects skipping rope in children's heart
The dust drizzles atop the sutured sound
And eyes litany...

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Todesfugue ("Death Fugue")
by Paul Celan
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Black milk of daybreak, we drink you come dusk;
we drink you come midday, come morning, come night;
we drink you and drink you.
We’re digging a grave like...

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GUM AND GUNFIRE
I SIT AT MY KITCHEN TABLE COMFORTABLY EATING A MANGO WITH OREO COOKIES
while a father fights off fearfulness fervently in a far off forest deep in Da Nang
Where even the trees have fangs
And...

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These days im filled with feeling insignificant.
Just a voice in the wind
Carried and spent
As the world turns, 
It turns itself inside out
Wearing suffocating masks while they lose their rights
Dragging everyone down with them as the...

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I had an epiphany today 
The first one in a long time
Such an interesting organ the brain
So many studies
Yet no one knows how consciousness really works
And if it even abides in the brain at all...

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I use to drink to kill the pain, I'd overeat to kill the pain.
But I couldn't explain why I couldn't maintain, outta my mainframe
And I couldn't reboot at the push of a button for nothin'
I...

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Verse 3
In life we want to live a happy life and be with someone.  From a young age we are pressured to find a job, have an education, be married, and have children by...

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Even if we were to win
these hunting
and killing
and fishing
and devouring
and gathering
and hoarding
and victimizing
and offending
and criminalizing
and punishing
holy wars
and zealot causes,

We would lose
our vocation
to mentor and facilitate restoration,
ego and ecotherapy reforestation,
healing,
health,
measured in polycultural health outcomes
by all democratically...

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A Golden Dawn is rising
the camera’s click the few,
the Greeks are out of options.
Immigration a convenient excuse.

Check your neighbour’s papers?
 Jews have seen this before,
African skin is burning
and kristallnacht knocks
 at victim’s door

Iran now plays...

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