Long Match Poems

For ten months now I’ve brooded over coming second place
in the pickle section deeming, it no less than a disgrace.
It was written plain and simple, so there can be no excuse,
that the pickles in this...

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Village in the Valley left behind, and then it's a fine find
Mountain in the making...in the dark alleys of my mind

You're a flashlight
In the night
You are a friend 
Till the end
Bite the bullet
You're the village...

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This is the story of mad Molly Shaw
She might be mad now but she wasn’t before
she came home to find her man dead on the floor
She lay down her bible and let out a roar...

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On an early morning just before school
My tummy is churning my head hurts too
My feet are cold my forehead is hot
I have a runny nose and a tongue with blue dots

“Mom come quick!” I helplessly...

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It may have been the devil himself who prompted the kids in my schoolyard back in 1947 to chant "Patsy Foley's roly-poly from eating too much ravioli."

At first, no one could remember who started the...

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"Open Oceans"



Kneeling on pearls
wisdom preys

praying
preying

hungry hearts
count the days 

wasting away
in all that preying 

for prayers 
to be answered

children become
strangers

reading 
strange words

finding 
themselves puzzled

genuflecting to a deity
they do not know, nor wish to

fumbling
mouths closed,

swallowed hole
in the...

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Rejection Slips 3

Rejection Slip
by Michael R. Burch

Whenever my writing gets rejected,
I always wonder how the rejecter got elected.
Are we exchanging at the same Bourse?
(Excepting present company, of course!)

When editors reject my poems, did I slip...

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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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“The Fallen”



Remote,
he sees himself 
in the reflection of cold close 
yet distant shop windows, 
his final journey along the 
Hard Time Road
walking alone, 
unforgiven, no home
for the rest of his natural life 
a million knives...

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Wounded Sacred Dementia: Part Two

Dementia's derelict WinLose SocialWorker
suboptimizingly hesitates
when I tell her
I have not changed my mind
about not adopting Fetal Alcohol Syndrome
into my vulnerable home
with a seven-year-old AfricanAmerican boy
blind
and unable to defend himself,
or even run...

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your silken skin gleams opaline
bathed in Luna's soft wash of cornflower - like a
porcelain Madonna by Michelangelo
conjured to life by the magic
of moonlight

your eyes open just long enough to
affix mine, and affirm I'm in a...

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FORTUNES READ the sign displayed
TRINKETS, CHARMS AND SPELLS
The store had not been here yesterday
shades of candles, books and bell
Drapes were hung from side to side
The windows all were dark
Where was this place a day ago?
Just...

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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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Hello,
you've reached the EcoTherapist Cooperative.
How can we help you
without bringing harm to Others?

That's a question I've never thought about.
I'm calling for the National Republican Party.
We would like to hire an EcoTherapist
for a consultation
during the 2020...

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Once upon a weedy lawn
At Cedar Oaks Retirement Home
There sat my mother, weak and old
On an afghan knit to block the cold.

It was summer, but in mom's grey eyes
Was winter, when all around us dies.
I...

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Veronica Franco translations

Veronica Franco (1546-1591) was a Venetian courtesan who wrote literary-quality poetry and prose.

Capitolo 19: A Courtesan's Love Lyric (I) 
by Veronica Franco
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

"I resolved to make a virtue of...

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There was a glimpse of time unknown to man
The things none may ever describe
All wrapped within this wall of thoughts
For if a moment of my thoughts are clear
They are not my thoughts at all
Never again...

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Note to Readers of Previous Versions:
There are so many new vignettes scattered throughout the poem that I hope you will reread the whole thing! There are many new GEMS, improvements to previous verses and improved...

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Sonnets LXXI-LXXX

Because You Came to Me
by Michael R. Burch

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, in despair.

Because you...

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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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~ Just  Call  His  Name  ~
 ( Pirouette )


~O~


In Him find Love, Hope, Peace 
In trouble, call His name 
He'll respond Your call 
Come in heart, live in you 
When you...

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"Backhand"



You have turned me
inside out, cut open
like a tennis ball
I used to beat backhand
along with the racket
hard against the garage wall

To make sense of it all
as a child, the grief stolen
all too swiftly and replaced...

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Is it just me or I'm starting to slow down along with the unwinding of time? 
Time is running out and oh how I feel sublime
I'm in need of understanding God's Word and Law 
I...

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~ You  Are My  Light  ~
( Daveda's  Hybrid  Concrete Candle)



~O~



 Dear 
 Lord 
 You're 
 My Light 
 You give 
 Love Hope 
 Peace Joy 
 In You...

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Set upon the new world stage within the burning fires of hell. Silently posed factions of the elite, suppress the true inherit of Mother Earth. The meek children bending over for millennium, taken spankings of...

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