Long Ride out 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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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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~ You’re  My  Rock  ~
( Whitney )



~O~



 Oh, my  God!
 You're my Rock in
 All. Help me,
 Do what's right. You’re
 My Lighthouse, 
 Through storms of life.
 You've transformed all...

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*Image of Hikers Warning by Pixabay.

Out Of The Way

As a self-proclaimed ruler of my person, I am mindful of the internal convictions, external constitutions as Lord overseer of my spotless realm,

Upon my own free will,...

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We'd been travelling through the night and we needed a rest
The unmerciful sun was now rising above a red rocky crest
We headed for a large boulder that offered plenty of shade
Jenna was getting sick and...

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We are hunkered down again 
as we watch the land cry 
evacuation gathering medication 
pets helping others as neighbors 
become first responders helping 
others checking on elderly residents 
rather Charlie Lisa Francis Hugo 
dean Katrina...

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Paradise Has Two Sides

So many think
- If there at all -
Paradise is someplace further away
Than their first thought on being born,
Than the thought that will ride out
On their last breath, 
More distant than the last...

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My childhood of the 1960's,
all those years ago,
feels like a Saturday in my
journey nostalgic.
The Cowsill's song "Flower Girl,"
their purity of song, of smiles.
A daydream streams,
of running in a field wearing
my Keds,
a sea of daisies and...

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He reminded me of a movie about aliens from outer space.                        ...

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After moments she shook her head,
then moved over to the brick hearth,
a strew cooked over glowing coals,
she threw more spuds in for her part.

Then came over to the main room,
and sat herself down on a...

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III.
He kept off the roads to avoid their eyes,
through scrub and dry grass, onwards he did ride,
skirting north of the ranch, behind a ridgeline,
until he stopped to see what he could find.

Sol crested the ridge...

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There was a fiddler, back in eighty-three,
a young fellow who called himself Monty,
wasn’t much of a worker, that is no lie,
but oh, how fast his fingers could fly…

He came from the east, most people did...

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Celestina Prior fell in love
with a man named Melon O’Neil,
and did thank those lucky stars above
for the way that this man made her feel,
she did not first think it could be real,
she was unmarried at...

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III.
Another week had passed with little change,
when Meredith came up and said to him:
“I would like to get out of town for a bit,
let’s go picnic in Abnerson’s Canyon.

“I used to go there with Samuel,
it’s...

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I promise I would be a good girl when I go out into the world, I promise to stay out of trouble and return home in a hurry. I promised never to play in the...

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Farewell old pard, I write this letter to you. Well, I guess I’ll saddle up and ride out with my new pard, he’s only a colt at three.
He’s a real beauty, a real eye pleaser...

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But later that night the girl tip-toed out,
And went down to the registry desk.
She picked up the ledger, poured through it all,
There was something that she had to check.

Back upstairs she went, content to wait
Her...

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Sleepy eyes awake to crashing sounds on window panes
                 Creeping animals scramble around bristling forests nesting for a spot
...

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Life – a churning maelstrom that batters the senses, the emotions
Ceaseless, never waning as it pounds endlessly on our soul
An eternal storm, lashing continuously against us
Beating at us, wearing down all resistance
Consuming us with its...

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The Knight

There once was a man, bravery beyond all compare
Bound to a king and kingdom, to the people in despair 
Past battles to honour his king and his homelands 
Willingly to lay down his life...

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I was somewhere deep in Kansas,
  on a Triumph 69’

When your song came on the jukebox,
   and hit me from behind

I was headed for a bad place,
  and cared for nothing...

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V.
Besides a rushing stream he saw a stone hut,
framed by aspens clinging to a rough slope,
the chimney was stained from long years of use,
But who lived out here? He just didn’t’ know.

Until his eyes happened...

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Midnight darkness suddenly descended upon the city as morning peeped through the blackened sky the city waits in suspense to die. 

They have been working for several days battening up windows and doors as if...

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THE MUSHERS RIDE OUT  (part 2)  Arctic Dogsledding 
(continuation)

             But in the race-- the last sleds skid
    ...

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I was somewhere deep in Kansas,
on a Triumph 69’

When your song came on the jukebox,
and hit me from behind

I was headed for a bad place,
and cared for nothing much

When I heard the song ‘Melissa,’
my heart...

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