Long Vowels Poems

State of the Art (III)

These are my "ars poetica" poems: the ones about the art and craft of writing poetry in a modern world that doesn't always recognize the artists or their work. 



Come Down
by...

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SELF REFLECTIONS

These are poems about mirrors, images, self-image, reflections, impressions and self-reflection. 

Self Reflection
by Michael R. Burch 

for anyone struggling with self-image

She has a comely form
and a smile that brightens her dorm ...
but she's grossly...

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Sonnets LXI-LXX

Erin
by Michael R. Burch

All that’s left of Ireland is her hair?
bright carrot?and her milkmaid-pallid skin,

her brilliant air of cavalier despair,
her train of children?some conceived in sin,

the others to avoid it. For nowhere
is evidence of...

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Sonnets XLII-LI

Distances
by Michael R. Burch

Moonbeams on water?
the reflected light
of a halcyon star
now drowning in night...
So your memories are.

Footprints on beaches
now flooding with water;
the small, broken ribcage
of some primitive slaughter...
So near, yet so far.



A Surfeit of...

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Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers IV



Neglect
by Michael R. Burch

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

What good, the warm...

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Poems about Poems III

Radiance
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus?hard toil?
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes?dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea but...

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Radiance
by Michael R. Burch

for Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea but feels its meaning—
the...

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Poems about Children V

Pan
by Michael R. Burch

Among the shadows of the groaning elms,
amid the darkening oaks, we fled ourselves

Once there were paths that led to coracles
that clung to piers like loosening barnacles

where we cannot return,...

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These are poems about Dylan Thomas, as well as poems "for" and "after" Dylan Thomas. Dylan Thomas was one of my favorite poets from my early teens and has remained so over the years. I...

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Myth, after Dylan Thomas
by Michael R. Burch

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and sighing, complete,
waiting, lain in a low...

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I wanted to write
 The best slavery poem   ever written—
Perhaps win a Pulitzer or Faulkner. 

I had every intention of conforming 
To the standards 
Of modern verse and composition, 
Lyrics fluidly written, 
Perfect...

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Sonnets LXXI-LXXX

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

Because you came to me with sweet compassion
and kissed my furrowed brow and smoothed my hair,
I do not love you after any fashion,
but wildly, in despair.

Because you...

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MODERN SONNETS II

I prefer the original definition of the sonnet as a “little song” of indeterminate form and length. These modern sonnets vary from more-or-less traditional to free verse.



In Praise of Meter
by Michael R. Burch

The...

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The reading of Villon poems at West Berlin’s Free University, Winter Semester 1957-58
                      ...

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I was raised in one of those white nationalist churches,
passing itself off as a Christian evangelical Bible church,
where "evangelical" meant fundamental
and "fundamental" meant we did not interpret scripture
but accepted it as God's literal trans-historical Word
of...

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I.
You can always tell by the eyes
When they’re starting to go
You’ll fall for a few of their lies
Before you begin to know
And you will just defy it
(But they know you will never go)

They’ll glide through...

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Now, I am not a huge man

I'm not large by any means

In fact it is surprising

I still wear normal jeans

My pants don't have elastics

I still use normal towels

But, my BMI stats tell me

I'm a word...

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Destruction, As Kali Walks Upon Earthen Grounds


Goddess of Destruction that teams with the Lord of Lusts 
As wrathful winds bequeath savage ravaging gusts
Hades match,  that has destroyed many a soul
World and darkness combine to...

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There was once a widow who had nothing but her beloved twin babies, Rosemary, and Ethan. The Widow loved her twins more than the Earth loved the Sun, and vowed to give them anything they...

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I am a singular event 
Occupying a particular span of time. 
I am a concrete mystic 
And an incurable skeptic 
Seeking an approximation 
Of peace and domestic tranquility. 
I am a Slavic soul brother 
Living...

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Am I the Assassin 
        or the Undertaker

                   For Palani...

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Since I no longer fit in my name,
I carry it beneath my heart,
like a relic unearthed
from a dead alphabet.
It is a cracked word,
written in blue ink
on the page of a lost Bible
in my grandparents' attic.

People...

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Which late afternoon/ early evening
today adventuristic, edenic, and idyllic
April 13th, 2021
pitch perfect weather
serves as temporary tonic
to balm away blues.

Like a tumbleweed
aimlessly blowing in the wind
across infinitely wobegon open wide
prairie home companion land
(which wasteland famously
epitomized by...

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Hundreds quizzed and all perplexed
Not even one understood
for my answer to their only question
who is your source?

Nonetheless iam not afraid and
dared to think beyond the surreal truth
But to tell the truth of truth; when
my positron...

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I like Muslims,
Particularly Yemenis
And Pakistanis (in Yemen)—
With whom, as a university don,
I happened to live for six years. 

Arabic vowels render 
A Yemeni voice gruff.
So even a greeting would   probably
Sound rude to you.

The...

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