Short Mandrake Poems

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.

Originally published by Mandrake Poetry Review...

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Unlucky snake



A slippery fellow named mandrake

From the zoo made a swift prison break

But a redback named Crunch

Had him for lunch

Down here our spiders eat snake.






 AND,if you don’t believe me check out the photographs on my blog

Limerick contest May 8th 2010...

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someone rapped on the window
in the evening
it was a star and it was bleeding
and it brough some strange parcel
with a note:
"Mandrake and an armoured elephant, for You."
 - Samuel Rosenstock
after which there were fireworks in the bedroom
and that’s how the dreams are born, if I’m right....

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A gorilla asked for my stomach today
I could do without it, so I gave it away.
My family thought this was a huge mistake
Except for my gargoyle, his name is Mandrake.

Some of the relatives began to make fun of me.
Mandrake lovingly slipped arsenic into their tea.
No one bosses us around anymore.
Except maybe the once-healthy lion, who is dying next door....

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Beware the enticing purple mandrake
Thinking it will calm a lover’s worries
Its berries do not make a tasty shake
Beware the enticing purple mandrake.
Many suitors have made this mistake
With its lovely yellow-orange berries
Beware the enticing purple mandrake
Thinking it will calm a lover’s worries.

written July 26, 2021
FIRST PLACE WINNER
Brian Strand Contest on Poetry Soup...

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Mandrake’s sisters had fuzzy balls
Green fuzzy balls on their roller skates
Red fuzzy balls on their ice skates
Purple and pink fuzzy balls on their backpacks

You cannot have fuzzy balls they told him
You are a boy
It would be silly for a boy to have fuzzy balls
So he grew up and made himself a fuzzy ball chair
He also stuck out his tongue at both sisters
Refusing to allow either of them to put their petootsies on it
...

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she is alabaster and brine
she is a faster lairs line
unwind her spooled mind
memory a keepsake in hand conquers a trinket lost
eat mandrake to the root but what the cost
unspoiled her thoughts broil in her head
steam from every seam
salty her groin but she declines the offered coin
she will reap the bliss of your salty kiss
as you bite her short hair she will sing a country tune so fair
she is alabaster and brine
a master of wasted time...

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still the same
still holding séances in batholes
still thrumming
and still drumming on my tinderbox

still letting the copycat days
kill themselves over and over
the angels are on strike
all over the Mandrake Mountain

still the dawn
is covered with cobwebs
of cold marine graveyards
still the dusk
is X-Rayed through our bones

still I exist
even though it feels I don’t
painted on the mouldy wall
just a part of a still life scenery...

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