Long Wren Poems

Instruction
by Michael R. Burch

Toss this poem aside
to the filigreed and the wild tide
of sunset.

Strike my name,
and still it is all the same.
The onset

of night is in the despairing skies;
each hut shuts its bright bewildered eyes.
The...

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Salvation of a Formalist, an Ode to Entropy
by Michael R. Burch

Entropy?
God's universal decree
That I get to be
Disorderly?
Suddenly
My erstwhile boxed-in verse is free?
Wheeeeee!



Eternal Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm...

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These are peace poems, prayer poems, hymns and lullabies I have written for family, friends and the world over the years ...

Peace Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

for Jim Dunlap

Be calm.
Be still.
Be silent, content.

Be one with the...

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Poems about Butterflies and Bees



Flight
by Michael R. Burch

It is the nature of loveliness to vanish
as butterfly wings, batting against nothingness
seek transcendence...



Album
by Michael R. Burch

I caress them—trapped in brittle cellophane—
and I see how young they were,...

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Villanelles

The villanelle is a poetic form based on repetition, with a double refrain. 



Villanelle: The Divide
by Michael R. Burch

The sea was not salt the first tide...
was man born to sorrow that first day, 
with the...

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Poems about Poems IV

The Toast
by Michael R. Burch

For longings warmed by tepid suns
(brief lusts that animated clay),
for passions wilted at the bud
and skies grown desolate and gray,
for stars that fell from tinseled heights
and mountains bleak...

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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 Things that Break I
 
These are poems about things that break and/or shatter: a bubble, glass, a mirror, a twig or tree limb, a thunderstorm, cities and towers in times of war, old...

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I hanker and pine for wood burning stove weather

I haint no spring chicken,
("Buk buk buk buk ba-gawk!")
but in Summer re: 
long in tooth sexagenarian 
nostalgic for the following imagery 
evoked yesterday with very little effort
(aside...

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Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear . . .

once starlight
languished
in your hair . . .

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret . . .
a pain
I chose to bear . . .

unleash
the torrent
of your hair . ....

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Three cousins played a “game’ of war
A map of Europe spread across the floor
No adults there to keep the score
As each of them wanted more and more

Three of four empires lay upon that map
As they...

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Ah... tis nothing greater than...

malfunctioning heater 
on that brisk winter day
recorded here as proof positive
regarding following reasonable rhyme.

While scrolling thru 
poems crafted yesteryear,
I chanced to jog my memory where
there
occurred power outage necessitated 
more than divine...

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November 13th, 2021 - Happy eighty sixth birthday
to my long deceased mom...
Harriet Harris née Kuritsky

My mother succumbed to a terminal illness
two score minus three orbitz passed away
no matter she fought tooth and nail
to keep ovarian/uterine...

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(or swing sets and monkey bars)

A pitch perfect spring day
such as today April 8th, 2022
within quaint hamlet 
of Schwenksville, Pennsylvania
in close proximity within mind's eye
to Lake Wobegon, Minnesota
finds me reminiscing...

When, scads of light years ago
(half...

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1.    John Desmond Patrick Keegan
2.    Alfred, Lord Tennyson 
3.    Sally Aline Mae Beller
4.    Charles Edward A. Berry
5.    Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce...

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Wind sings praise, and the wings who soar
silent adoration – soft as the light
climbing the skies, breathless and alive
rising in murmurings who bless the night
mounting impressions of the sea’s gentle tides,
flowing with worship, admiring the...

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Mine Nightmare With Social Anxiety,...
Now Mostly Purged

Decades removed when body electric
felt tortured reverberated, and quaked
with MegaDeath repercussions tattooing, 
piercing, foisting, ensnaring, drubbing
 
drum beat indelibly 'pon psyche NON 
MEMORABLE years gone bye felled 
psyche with...

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The root word for religion is not kind – 
Latin verb that means to tie or to bind – 
as it tends to play tricks on anyone’s mind. 

For some, the edicts lash; they mercilessly...

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True "FAKE" Story Of A Vita Man Junky
(any resemblance between this poem,
and living persons...iz purely coincidental.)

Ruthlessly abuzz in my mind
     loosed another idea
     for a poem asper
(wren)...

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Jack Allen was a serious, shy schoolboy, who worked hard at school lessons;
Like mottled skies working hard each day, to convey many color obsessions.

Jack was a little small for his age, and had begun to...

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Vicar Tynan sat amongst his roses in a Friday morning sun,
that shone in beams through willow branch and leaves,
where it’s time to think of Sunday and what sermon must be done,
when he heard squabbling coming...

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Villanelle: Remembering Not to Call
by Michael R. Burch

(a villanelle permitting mourning, for my mother, Christine Ena Burch)

The hardest thing of all,
after telling her everything,
is remembering not to call.

Now the phone hanging on the wall
will never...

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“Whoso List to Hunt” is a famous early English sonnet written by Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542) in the mid-16th century. 

Whoever Longs to Hunt
by Sir Thomas Wyatt
loose translation/interpretation/modernization by Michael R. Burch

Whoever longs to hunt,...

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The tender, torpid sun floats bored and heavy over vines
And casts his gentle, crimson rays upon the Apennines. 
Above the calm and golden hill, Agrippa’s villa stands:
A marble mansion reigning firm atop the ripened lands....

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Smaller than a dinosaur, 
But bigger than a bear, 
A boulder’s tucked back in the woods,
Forever, it’s been there.
It’s wondrous in its natural form,
A nursery, home, and den.
You may not notice at first glance,
Come closer,...

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