Long Yellowing Poems

Lozenge
by Michael R. Burch

When I was closest to love, it did not seem
real at all, but a thing of such tenuous sweetness
it might dissolve in my mouth
like a lozenge of sugar.

When I held you in...

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Our lusty voice was in the tramp of narrow, winding,
     Scree-littered, deep-rutted roads;     
 Ravens, uttering guttural croaks, slow-wheeling above      
 ...

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Slowly he opened the drawer and looked inside.  Some time had passed since he last gazed upon the cloth that lay there.  Years perhaps.  Yes definitely years.  The blotched rusty brown...

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Sometimes pandemic people share
pieces of our unspeakable personal story

That no health care worker,
sex therapist player,
or green resonant systems organizer
wants to hear,
much less smell,
or touch,
or deeply feel...

I flinch, sometimes.

Wince.

Maybe flirt with longer-term
dissociation,
to protect myself
from suicide
to protect...

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Who suggests a trip back...rides to this bit of nostalgia in the middle years of the Great Depression aboard a Chicago elevated train, "the El." We hurdle head-long above asphalt blanketed streets that are determined...

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Gaia steps out
to listen

She may roar in full voiced 
crescendo

Then retreat, hiding
anticipating with global delight
diminuendo

Tomorrow
our first perfect win/win day
when no win/lose to lose/lose
has unpromisingly happened
to trigger my anxiety,
innuendo

Of win/win delight
empowering Sun's sacred
yellow persevering light

Gaia will...

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Do not vainly look in those remote
Places,
That, once, were acquainted with a 
Small part of me;                   ...

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How many?
how many lives;
how many have fallen 
beneath 
your magical spell? 

If it may be so, 
let each star be named 
You.
 
For your beauty transpires 
our words 
into all shine and sheen cast out
from...

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A Meandering Cocophony of Thought that Evades Fate

Contractual obligations toward your future self
Non-Factual invocations that deprive you of your health 
Actual comparisons between poverty and wealth 
Emmanuel on the eve of a heavenly operation of...

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Lucifer, right hand of God, angel of light,glowing beauty, knowledge, intelligence unmatched by any level of creation. Almost perfect creature, archangel of the realm, leader over angels and man. That brief second in the first...

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It stands on the edge of civilization,
fed by a ghost town road
A starving artery leading into the desert
Only desperadoes and Death Valley aficionados
pass through this lonely stretch of land
But there's a diner sitting at this...

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Skin pulled tight over gaunt faces,
hollow eyes looking out at me,
fearful of what they see,
dreading pity,
empathy,
apathy,
wanting form me
only an ear,
an ear i’ve given  too many times
from those too many times
so tired is this ear
that...

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To be a polylepis tree you gotta know 
You're a polylepis tree & this knowing 
Cements by being a polylepis tree,
Knowing between diagrammatic cracks
Fork'd already info knowing during descent.
Mud run through alpine meadow. Rubberized 
Crunch...

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Where once verdant rolling highlands...

Spanned into infinite vista
far as these myopic eyes can see
now yellowing Whitmanesque
leaves of grass encompass field of vision.

Nary a dark dreadnaught cloud in sight,
nor unbeknownst if/when threatening storm
looms on horizon slaking...

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UPROOTED


“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.”--------------------Rumi
listen not to the vagrant zephyr
seeking only sustenance of its kind
idol thinkers lolling in innocence
swayed by every whispering sigh
unaware – that secrets lie.

“We put the urn aboard...

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“God bless us all when the door is shut behind us, 
only then will we breathe our first breath,
and awake 
from the long dream…”


Forging past the indisputable summit onto the 
shelf of the perfect medium...

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The screen door slams behind me
As I rush out into the blinding sunlight
Wondering where my big brother is hiding
I better get to the pool before he finds me
And throws me into the ice cold water
That...

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FICTIONAL EMOTIVE WRITE

Since I was a tiny baby I was brought up by my grandparents and had a very happy childhood. I knew that they were not my real parents but they gave me such...

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The autumn breeze goes through the lushful green yet hint of yellowing trees, it's so blissful, yet so fearful.
Laying in the warm green grass, as the breeze flies through my hands.
The warm sun is almost...

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  ONE: Book of  Kings /What kind of man can laugh in prison?  / the kings answered " a man who is free"/ just then , a trumpet sounded/ a throne and...

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I
The form we take
In the shape of a life
From trumpet birth blasts
To the final shadow sighs
The faithful leap
From a Dayton hill
To silver supersonic flight
A mountain of yellowing
Paper words and work
Of worn shoes
Discarded styles
An inland lake...

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SWANSONG

England expects Britannia to rule the waves,
From the white cliffs of Dover
To where the Sun never sets.

We’ll keep the Union Jack flying
Over this sceptred isle,
Set in a silver sea, 
As a beacon of light
To ward...

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Glow morning warm
hugging
sleepy scalp and face embrace
outside sacred pink
yellowing fragrant dawn

Without fear of fading dark
or death
or sin

Welcome in
naked foot massage
pressure memories of walk
on stretching strings

Hang on
for this new day's feel good dance

Lay back
tummy up
butt and...

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So still and beautiful lays the rose in the heather,
Lifeless and dying, given to bring you happiness,
So fragile is this rose laying in heather,
Slowly withering and drying, crumbling to a powder,
I look at you and...

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It was a day when the crowded avenue of wizened oak trees
  Loosened its first spluttering of yellowing leaves;
    And far out across the stubbled fields, devoid of the
  ...

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