Long Washers Poems

[This poem 'No God Of  Mine' was seemingly confounding readers as
to its meaning. Ordinarily, if I felt a poem wasn't  cutting it, I'd delete
it, but on this occasion, I've been asked to explain it... so here goes.]


By...

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- - Chapter 2: Adult Responsibility (With Some Breaks) - -     

By ten years old, no weekends off, 
Or Saturday cartoons, 
Although I did have cash to spend, 
I felt my...

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Unquotable quotes: Paris, the last week of the August reprieve – XXXV Part Two
                 II

The first signs reek tell-tale
Buffer-to-buffer...

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I grew up and out on a four family-owned,
and cooperatively-organized,
extended matriarchal farm.

Four interdependent 1940s through 1970s patriarchally managed businesses,
without substantial questions about who should wear pants,
yet with a surprising matriarchal cooperative understory.

The boxers outnumbered the...

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Unquotable quotes: Paris, the last week of the August reprieve – XXXV
 Part One                     ...

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My wife and I were apartment managers for 18 grueling years that rented exclusively to college students, and - though everything I claim here is either disgusting or scary - or BOTH....it’s all true!



Well, it’s...

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Cement, sand and gravel, blood, body and soul
Eternity bred from hell's darkest hole
Combine gruesome aggregates, hydrate the mix
Mould them and dry them, then stack up the bricks.

Thought in advance and precision laboured
Set automatic, eternity savoured
No...

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Grandma Gretchen's in her rocker and she has something to say. 

She tells a visitor, a young man from the city, if he plans to write a book about life on a farm in the...

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Being Your Eyes for Swell 2007
Swell: Currumbin Sculpture Festival
 
For Fred
Picture us arm in arm, strolling,
the crunch of sand underfoot,
the scent of sea air, the touch of sea wind
on our skin, again on the beach...

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the

 

art of                                ...

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Banana Bread Yum!


Spring was in the air sooo thick that you could cut it with a knife!
As to the Laundromat I went with Dragon at my always, dutiful side.
The sun was shining with all its...

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" Serious Message "

While sleeping one night
I had a terrible dream
a vivid vision inside of me
a Serious Message
of all the crime and hate
reflected within our society.

Emergency alarms
car alarms
graffiti and trash
all over the city.

Noise and air...

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The toy boxes empty, and yesterday's thrills

                        Are buried together in mountainous...

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When you sort decades of electric cables from that box hidden away

It reminds of disentangling neurons haphazardly fired at random

	It’s a beautiful day and you’re in it among sea saw and hammer


Hundreds of screws in...

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twisted tied dyed bug infested, interested;
mon tosh memorized motor vehicle registrations;
tailor chokeberry reaches rhymes gyrations;
leaving whom am I to remain, sustained
captured...

WHY SHOULD I COMPLAIN
no ones listen......
no one listen.....
WHY SHOULD I COMPLAIN
who am I to cry
no...

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Scrubbing dishes in a cold kitchen,
on a tabletop rats nibble
through a leather bible cover. 
She turns,
a lock of sweat matted hair over one eye,
shakes a red knuckle at a wailing child
sat on the floor by...

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11/11/16
"Water"


On land and in the water

Ores such as copper


The M.V. P. of the entire roster

Back in the day they use to call me Harry Potter

Show me a lady that can cook like Betty Crocker

I'll appreciate...

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Crack open an eye on Saturday morn,
and reach out to give him a cuddle.
To find he's been up since break of dawn,
and crouched in a black oily puddle.
Began with the Polo, a fast one I...

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I thought I would have, all my cards in the mail
You can tell that my pace, is that of a snail
I’m such a “go getter” and I hate sitting still
One things’ for certain, I haven’t...

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Ponds paint greenish portraits in rural Indian landscape,
Docile duck rafts do dive-tricks, teasing whale-like buffaloes,
Salmon and tilapia tickle skaters and shrunk snails,
Tadpoles and fries from deadly algae and skaters escape...

Girls in petticoats and boys with...

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Who pooped my pants?
I ask in vain                            ...

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Hymn to an Art-o-matic Laundromat
by Michael R. Burch

after Richard Thomas Moore’s “Hymn to an Automatic Washer”

O, terrible-immaculate
ALL-cleansing godly Laundromat,
where cleanliness is next to Art
—a bright Kinkade (bought at K-Mart),
a Persian rug (made in Taiwan),
a Royal...

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Prayers descend like acid rain from 
oligarch-soaked manchurians, stumping 
for elected office, praising hybrid 
demigods, passing out vouchers to the 
peasants.

A slow rumbling-
 part of the night-sounds-of-curfew;
descends like fire ants.

Cleaners of the guilt, hidden in...

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Life in the house is pretty easy these days,
what with washers, vacuams, fridges, and microwaves.
My poor old mum had none of those,
just the old fashoined copper, and scrubbing board, to wash our clothes.
No mains water,...

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Life in the house is pretty easy these days,
what with washers, vacuams, fridges, and microwaves.
My poor old mum had none of those,
just the old fashoined copper, and scrubbing board, to wash our clothes.
No mains water,...

Read More