Long Windy Poems

An icy chill descends on 13 Beaver Veil Cottage as sisters Ester and Ellie walk gingerly up the steps on this wet and windy night.
This once charming pied-a-terre was now in a final phase denouement.
The...

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n icy chill descends on 13 Beaver Veil Cottage as sisters Ester and Ellie walk gingerly up the steps on this wet and windy night.
This once charming pied-a-terre was now in a final phase denouement.
The...

Read More

"As other spirits sail on music, mine, oh my love, swim on your perfume." Charles Baudelaire

"Sometimes you find an old bottle from which the soul returns." 
Charles Baudelaire

"Smell is a Word. Perfume is Literature."

"There are...

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Poems about Poems (I)



What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer
~~~underwater~~~
watching the shoreline blur
sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles...
Both worlds grow obscure.



Muse/Goddess
by Michael R. Burch

“What will you conceive in...

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Epigrams

Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that every leaf must finally fall,
it’s just that we can never catch them all.

Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover...

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State of the Art (II)

These are my "ars poetica" poems about the art and craft of writing poetry. 



What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer 
~~~~underwater~~~~
watching the shoreline...

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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 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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Athenian Epitaphs II

These are ancient Greek epitaphs for lost family and friends, including dogs and other animals ...

Now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night: 
his owner's faithful Maltese... 
but will...

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A Night On A Wharf

The couple decide to walk. The boardwalk still lit at this late hour guides them. They walk hand in hand,..whispering softly with small talk...solemn.,. lonely , yet together. The walk is...

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When I was a child in Los Angeles, you could size up groups approaching by watching their movements.

I remember this gang of older kids approaching me, watching them carefully while looking down to see if...

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(continued from A Year Of Months (January-June)
https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/heroic_crown_of_sonnets_-_part_one_772928


A Year Of Months (July-December)

8. July

July now follows summer's song of June;
with sun ablaze, her days are humid, warm.
Great time to languish in the afternoon,
and later, watch an evening...

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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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I miss the old days where only you had my key
I miss the old times - running wild and free
I miss the old house and your pool and banana tree
I miss the days when it...

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MICHELANGELO: Modern English Translations

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) is considered by many experts to be the greatest artist and sculptor of all time. These are modern English translations of his poems and epigrams by Michael R. Burch.



SONNET:...

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This was last Saturday night. We were at a rooftop party in downtown New Haven thrown by ‘DocHouse.’ Doc-House is kind of a frat-house, owned by Dr. Melon, where he and seven doctoral students live....

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Despite the day-to-day signs of man’s bitter degradation, there were many in the South who somehow still failed to see the endless pain of segregation. From the viewpoint of those who never lived there as...

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Our Year Of Months (January - July)

1. Intro

Divided into months is our Earth year;
fixed firm in space to meet with climate change,
relation with our Sun makes it so clear
we will be blessed with seasons that...

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Temporal incarnation of Aphrodite...

induces idyllic reverie
delight evoking similar surge,
when skirting, and eluding 
fidelity defining the marital law
on par with courting in flagrante delicto.

After reading about 
Greek goddess of love
fancy notion woke whereof
warmth suffused me
snug as...

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Sudden movement of my heart, a shattered piece of art, 
Broke me apart from the start…rolling in the inner death-cart
Heartrate going sky high — I won’t lie nor can I deny that life cuts deep...

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The past was locked in with very little 'right of passage'.                        ...

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THE GRIM REAPER (JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE OFFICE) 

The Grim Reaper; again awakens from another well-earned day of sleep
From within the bowels of this cavernous earth, from his cave, so deep

His cloak and scythe;...

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Hope and Effort

                            When the sky is veiled...

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The ask of cultures. 
Dutch to Portugal, do you think colonisation of fruit and lands and their inhabitants was the fairest exchange of our tactics of the strategy to wrestles of communication. They decided the...

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