Skip to main content

Unrendered

It doesn’t have a start or an end— just the hum, the buzz of your brain in silence. Internal electricity. You try to catch it— like lightning, try to sculpt something: words, clay, paint on a stretcher canvas. But it doesn’t escape. The tight grip on your chest. Eyes behind eyes. Screens before mirrors before windows. The buzz in your head blending into the melody of fluorescent lights.
Reviews
Post review
No reviews yet.

Free Verse

These are free verse poems I have written over the last half century, and also a few rhyming poems about free verse.

Reason Without Rhyme
by Michael R. Burch

I used to be averse
to free verse,
but now I admit
YOUR rhyming is WORSE!

But alas, in the end,
it’s all the same:
all verse is unpaid
and a crying shame.

***

The AI Poets
by Michael R. Burch

The computer-poets stand hushed
except for the faint hum
of their efficient fans,

Reviews
Post review
No reviews yet.

Prose Poems

These are prose poems and experimental poems.

Prose Poem: The Trouble with Poets
by Michael R. Burch

This morning the neighborhood girls were helping their mothers with chores, but one odd little girl went out picking roses by herself, looking very small and lonely. Suddenly the odd one refused to pick roses anymore because it occurred to her that being plucked might “hurt” them. Now she just sits beside the bushes, rocking gently back and forth, weeping and consoling the vegetation!

Reviews
Post review
No reviews yet.

SALAT DAYS

 

"Salat Days” is a poem I wrote about a barely edible weed called — take your pick — pokeweed, poke salad, poke sallet and poke salat. The poem “Salat Days” is followed by a prose version that might be called a short story, a personal essay or flash fiction or micro fiction.


Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch


Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

Reviews
Post review
No reviews yet.

Quiet in the Forests of Night

quiet in the forests of night
watching with white eyes
alone in the darkness
waiting for the one
 
the pond was torn
in ripples that marked the shore
silent as the woods around it—
and the creak of the toads
 
it was day
the wings yielded movement
in the trees that came alive
and left us behind
 
flames once wore on us
every night as we walked home—
alone now they’ve withered
with memories made along the road
 
round and round
on winter grass we’re frozen
in scenes on postcards—
Reviews
Post review
No reviews yet.

Songs of a New Morning

from the shore
where I can see it all
as it floats away
 
to some other land
where the sun continues to shine
for centuries
 
and treetops
sway in the wind
filling the grass
with wandering pollen
 
          *
 
worn out
like a flag flown
for many years
 
          *
 
alone here
where your lips once
had left a mark
 
          *
 
once
Reviews
Post review
No reviews yet.

Life

Life continues to move along
Whether you get on or get off
Or sit there by the side
On a bench beneath the shade
To smoke a cigar and watch
The wind blow and the leaves
As they fall in every which way
Reviews
Post review
No reviews yet.

Time Management

She looks at me, crystal-eyed
She is Jodie Foster post Panic Room
calm voice, stoic face
“So what is time to you?”
“How do you feel about time?”
In my mind I think about
the million and one things I could do
with my time that do not include
talking about time, but I say
Time
is never enough
is not within my control
And we let time pass
between us
the silent pauses like change
falling through pocket holes
lost in the seams
ghostly jingles.
 
And I take my time
because it seems I can
and wonder if I could be so brave as
Reviews
Post review
No reviews yet.
Subscribe to free verse