Long Wreckage Poems

“Son”...”say goodnight to grandpa”

Spurred by mother dearest 
as well as other politesse
drummed into her second born
fobbing blandishments as incentive
tumbled off fingers of prodigal son
tripped wordsmith to splutter forth
forthwith the following lines.

Back in the day 
quaint...

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Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then...

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"Salvage"


Salvage the fixating salvation 
unfurling from the wreckage
of a numb world twisted inside
treasure climbs swimming 
the ladder from the deep of all things 
reaching upwards travelling in a new time
of melting morpheme moments overlapping 
dissolved...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems IV
I wrote this around age 17.



Bible Libel
by Michael R. Burch

If God
is good
half the Bible
is libel.

I read the Bible from cover to cover at age eleven, ten chapters per day, at the suggestion...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems by Michael R. Burch



Smoke
by Michael R. Burch

The hazy, smoke-filled skies of summer I remember well;
farewell was on my mind, and the thoughts that I can't tell
rang bells within (the din was in)...

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Yet at this very moment the cathedral was crumbling
down upon the cries of foresaken refugees, 
the monastery's walls wobbling from war's wreckage, 
and as the black bursts billowed into sun drenched brutality
with the bodies of...

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A born lioness my untamed heart? ha! 
a mouse, this pulsing token ruled by unruly wants
at times given, traded or stolen - sometimes
thrown down on a dare to be won or lost 
till it became...

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It was Christmas Eve and I was at the airport,
Not a soul in sight, almost deserted, it was 10.00 pm,
Only two hours before Christmas day,
Perhaps if I got on a plane, I would see Santa...

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Despite his impatience to show me his hell,
He waited for me in my rest, 
Lying upon the ground, I awoke in prayer,
Thanking God above and asking Him for guidance

“My heart is Yours, always,
From the moment...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XII

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

for Beth

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,...

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HOW I WOULD DESCRIBE MYSELF

People often say to me 
“What can you tell me about yourself” 
guess it’s my duty to explain to them 
and so I look them in the face and reply 

My...

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In America June 14th equals flag day
and in Pennsylvania a federal holiday.

"...I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic for which it stands. One nation under god...

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Where did you go?
I want you to know
That I love you so, 
But I got to get up and roam
Due to being far from home 

Oh, I hear them...and feel them...

I hear the echoes of...

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Incomplete metamorphosis of distilled adolescent...

therefore he characterizes himself as an anomaly...any idea why?

Mortified, petrified, stultified, et cetera sheltered, 
and mortally wounded prepubescent,

I consider myself
analogously buttressed, cocooned,
garrisoned (for bing keeler), 
hardened, insulated,
where cell baited jumping frog
o'...

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Isis staind 26+ years of marriage

Yes, believe me you, 
I (also considered the best karaoke singer
for the go-go's) 
putting Shabrina Leonita to shame
back in two thousand and twenty one
once flew high as the eagles 
a...

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Oxygen is depleting from what remains within the confines of which, a means to an end, lie guarded. Watch as hope disappears within the aftermath of this wreckage, which was constructed-meticulously seeking absolute perfection…; only...

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please tell me ...

what happened?
what dire damage have i wrought?
what did i do to ruin it, that friendship, rare?
you once knew me better than most ...

my darkness didn't frighten you, didn't rattle,
you sighted those demons...

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Vanished

the wild magic of this place;

this wilderness I now roam alone
as its lifeblood seeps 
into 
Afterlife

..my mournful howls
across time and distance
go unanswered -
Oh, how I long to join again
in my brethren’s song..

fading sunlight falls in...

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In the year ninteen eighty one on the nineteenth day of December
A day the town of Mousehole in Cornwall, will always remember
An R.N.L.I. Watson class wooden lifeboat, the 'Solomon Browne'
Launched from Penlee lifeboat station in...

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(Lights dim, a single spotlight illuminates Judy Garland, center stage. She wears a faded housecoat, her eyes holding a lifetime of stories. She speaks directly to the audience, her voice a smoky whisper)

Judy: 
They christened...

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Isis staind 27+ years...

of scorpion stinging poison us marriage,
whereby the missus and I,
nevertheless experienced genesis as 
mama and papa respectively.

(jest kibitizing)

thus explaining why I 
(a beatle browed  
sixty five year young adult) 
joined blue...

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Grant this civil yankee to doodle till Lee gets blue in the face 

blowing 99 red balloons April 9th, 2023
will signal 158 years since Appomattox
plus what would have been ninety sixth birth 
of the late...

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When vitamin and medication bottles became plaything of the missus

Mental health of yours truly
heavily reliant upon one selective serotonin
reuptake inhibitor named fluoxetine (Prozac)
aside from countless
(approximately seven) other
prescription medications kept
stashed in a plastic tray
until one or...

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The Great Falls of the northern Plains is actually a chain of five seperate waterfalls
varying in height and majesty extending over 12 miles,
they also confirm that the right river was chosen,
we had hoped that the...

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Inevitable death defines afterlife - trois

So all I ask, would be
inviting, offering, and ushering me to 
top secret cygnet committee
to give this average sized 
chapped sticky man
spinning the david bowie playlist 
as a somber dee...

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