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if i was a pearl i’d feel itchy scratchy stuck inside an oyster shell if i was a tree i’d  be a big fat redwood fantasizing about Julia Butterfly Hill living and peeing around me if i was a dog i’d be a Catahoula hound if i was Italian i’d be Sicilian if i was pasta i’d be spaghetti if i was Icelandic i’d be Bjork if i was a rock star i’d be Elvis Presley Bob Dylan Jimi Hendrix Jim Morrison John Lennon Bruce Spingsteen Maynard James Keenan if i was i writer i’d be Herman Melville Mark Twain James Joyce William Faulkner Thomas Bernhard Yukio Mishima Naguib Mahfouz Phillip K. **** Gabriel Garcia Marquez Annie Proulx Lydia Davis if i was a poet i’d be Walt Whitman Sylvia Plath Ted Hughes Gwendolyn Brooks Pablo Neruda  Heather McHugh Carl Sandburg Robert Frost Arthur Rimbaud Dante Alighieri Homer if i was a painter i’d be Leonardo Da Vinci Michelangelo da Caravaggio Johan Vermeer Rembrandt van Rijn Paul Cezanne Marcel Duchamp Jackson ******* Mark Rothko Ad Reinhardt Anselm Kiefer Susan Rothenberg if i was a photographer i’d be Man Ray Ansel Adams Edward Weston Diane Arbus Robert Mapplethorpe Sally Mann Helmut Newton Richard Avedon Annie Leibovitz if i was a philosopher i’d be Socrates Plato Aristotle Jean Jacques Rousseau Sören Kierkegaard Immanuel Kant Karl Marx Georg Hegel Friedrich Nietzsche Henry David Thoreau Ralph Waldo Emerson  Jean-Paul Sartre Jean Baudrillard Michel Foucault if i was a singer i’d be Woody Guthrie Otis Redding Grace Slick Bob Marley Joni Mitchell Marvin Gaye Johnny Cash Patsy Cline June Carter Patti Smith Chrissie Hinde Nick Cave P J Harvey Beyonce if i wa a band i’d be Velvet Underground Ramones *** Pistols Clash Cure Smiths Joy Division Uncle Tupelo Pixies Nirvana Nine Inch Nails Madrugada Sigur Ros White Stripes Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra Justice of the Unicorns if i was a boot i’d be Chippewa Frye Ariat Red Wing Tony Lama Wellington if i was a shoe i’d be Christian Louboutin Jimmy Choo Kedds Chaco Chuck Taylor p f flyer if i was a dress i’d be Channel Dolce & Gabbanna Giorgio Armani Marc Jacobs Comme des Garçons if i was a cowboy shirt i’d be H bar C Rockmount Temp Tex Karman Wrangler Levis Strauss Lee if i was a hat i’d be a Stetson Borsalino Stephen Jones if i was a fruit i’d be a mango apple banana blackberry if i was an scent i’d smell like fresh perspiration jasmine sandalwood ylang ylang the ocean if i was a doctor i’d be a gynecologist neurosurgeon if i was a flower i’d be a hibiscus rose orchard if i was a stone i’d be a sparkling ruby diamond opal if i was a knife i’d be a k-bar switch-blade machete if i was a gun i’d be a Remington Winchester Beretta Glock AK-47 if i was a car i’d be a Lamborghini Ferrari BMW Saab Volkswagen GTO Ford Mustang Dodge Challenger if i was a  TV show i’d be Law and Order if i was actor i’d be Charlie Chaplin Humphrey Bogart Steve McQueen Robert De Niro Ed Norton Shawn Penn if i was an actress i’d be Marlene Dietrich Ingrid Bergman Natalie Wood Audrey Hepburn Marilyn Monroe Helen Mirren  Meryil Streep Brigette Fonda Robin Wright Julianne Moore Angie Harmon if i was a female comedian i’d be Gilda Radner Lily Tomlin Nora Dunn Joan Cusack Sarah Silverman Tina Fey if i was a  football player i’d be Sid Luckman George Blanda Walter Payton **** Butkus Mike Singletary Joe Montana Jerry Rice Payton Manning LaDanian Tomlinson  Drew Breeze if i was a celebrity i’d be Charlotte Gainsbourg if i was a rapper i’d be Tupac Shakur if i was a movie director i’d be Sam Peckinpah Robert Altman Stanley Kubrick Roman Polanski Werner Herzog Rainer Fassbinder Louis Bunuel Alfred Hitchcock Jean-Luc Godard François Truffaut if i was a bird i’d be a eagle hawk sparrow bluebird if i was a fish i’d be a dolphin shark narwhal Charlie the tuna if i was breakfast i’d be a French toast pancake folded in half with 2 strips of bacon in between if i was a cold cereal i’d be snap crackle popping rice crispies shredded wheat cheerios oatmeal if i was tea i’d be Japanese green matcha Irish breakfast Tulsi Thai holy basil Lapsang souchong Luzianne Lipton if i was a soap i’d be French hand milled ayurvedic Avon Ivory Dove Pears Aveda  if i was a man i’d be a football basketball baseball tennis swimmer athlete if i was a woman i’d be a track star runner writer painter gardener doctor nurse yoga mom i'm just scratching the surface and the beat goes on lahdy dah dah
Perig3e Feb 2012
Zero Butkus:
  0 × n = 0
  n / 0 = 0
  0 / 0 not defined
  0 + 0 = 0
But
   (1 + 1)^ 0 = 1

Valentine thank you
for your exponential hugs
making us one.
Michael R Burch Mar 2020
The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

All the dull hollow clamor has died
and what was contained,
removed,

reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness

as remembered as the sudden light.

Originally published by The Raintown Review

These are poems about sports like baseball, basketball, boxing, football and soccer. Keywords/Tags: Sports, locker, locker room, clamor, adulation, acclaim, applause, sentiment, darkness, light, retirement, athlete, team, trophy, award, acclamation



Ali’s Song
by Michael R. Burch

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river, child.
I flung their medal to the river, child.

They hung their coin around my neck; they made
my name a bridle, “called a ***** a *****.”
They say their gold is pure. I say defiled.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.
I flung their slave’s name to the river, child.

Ain’t got no quarrel with no Viet Cong
that never called me ******, did me wrong.
A man can’t be lukewarm, ’cause God hates mild.
I flung their notice to the river, child.
I flung their notice to the river, child.

They said, “Now here’s your bullet and your gun,
and there’s your cell: we’re waiting, you choose one.”
At first I groaned aloud, but then I smiled.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.
I gave their “future” to the river, child.

My face reflected up, more bronze than gold,
a coin God stamped in His own image—Bold.
My blood boiled like that river—strange and wild.
I died to hate in that dark river, child.
Come, be reborn in this bright river, child.

Published by Black Medina, Bashgah (Iran, in a Farsi translation), Other Voices International, Thanal Online (India), Freshet, Formal Verse, Borderless Journal, Interracial Love, and in a YouTube video by Lillian Y. Wong

Note: Cassius Clay, who converted to Islam and changed his “slave name” to Muhammad Ali, said that he threw his Olympic boxing gold medal into the Ohio River. When drafted during the Vietnamese War, Ali refused to serve, reputedly saying, “I ain't got no quarrel with those Viet Cong; no Vietnamese ever called me a ******.” I was told through the grapevine that this poem appeared in Farsi in a publication called Bashgah.



Me?
Whee!
(I stole this poem
From Muhammad Ali.)
—Michael R. Burch



hey pete!
by michael r. burch

for Pete Rose

hey pete,
it's baseball season
and the sun ascends the sky,
encouraging a schoolboy’s dreams
of winter whizzing by;
go out, go out and catch it,
put it in a jar,
set it on a shelf
and then
you'll be a Superstar.

Pete Rose was my favorite baseball player as a boy; this poem is not a slam at him, but rather ironic commentary on the term “superstar.”



Baseball's immeasurable spittin’ mixed with occasional hittin’.—Michael R. Burch



Larry Seivers had golden hands
by Michael R. Burch

Larry Seivers had golden hands,
platinum hands,
diamond hands,
hands of jasper, sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, sardius, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, chrysoprase, jacinth and amethyst.

Other receivers were more elusive,
bigger,
faster,
more physical,
flashier ...

but Larry Seivers had hands.



Julius
by Michael R. Burch

Instinct
in an unplanned moment
as you rise
will teach your limbs the art of flight:
the waltz of light
through vaulted skies.

A falcon flies:
its keening cries
as sunlight fails
fall hollow to the earth below,
and you must know
how fierce the light of sunset feels.

You hear
those ringing cries, their echoes clear
though far away, and so you pause
—defying even gravity,
suspended over some vast sea—
then fall ... into applause.



Larry Legend
by Michael R. Burch

He's slow, can't jump,
looks pale and plump.
He talks too much;
he brags, and such.
He's not real nice,
has blood like ice
and will like steel
(and steal he will).
But when the game is on the line,
your team, or mine?



Big Mc Attack
by Michael R. Burch

Johnny Mc
Enroe
is back—
the fierce
attack
of words
and serves,
returns
and taunts.

He flaunts;
he flails,
reviles
and rails.
Sometimes
he wails.
His ego
swells.
He grunts
and groans
and moans
and gee . . .
I think
he wants
to referee!

Johnny Mc
(thank God)
is back—
wisecrack
ing, fiery,
taking flack
(not hesitant
to give it back).

We love
to watch
him glare
and wince,
and since we sense
his dreams
(intense),
we sit
on pins
until
he wins.



For Jack Nicklaus, at the 1987 Open
by Michael R. Burch

When you were young
every putt was makeable
and every dream remarkable;
the stars were unmistakable
you set your sights upon.

Then, in your youth,
time not yet a factor
and age not yet your rector,
you plotted every vector
and victory shone ahead, like truth.

But uncouth youth was fleeting ...
soon losses grew more numerous;
time's skies became more cumulus;
the nerves with age—more tremulous,
as the sun from the sky was setting, retreating.

How have you then, as sunset nears
and the world looks on with unsure eyes,
cast off the crutch of age to rise
and stand as though the butterflies
have no effect, no, nor the cheers?



I wrote this poem after Tom Watson chipped in at the 1982 US Open to defeat Jack Nicklaus. Nicklaus was getting older, but he was still competitive.

There Are Dreams
by Michael R. Burch

for Jack Nicklaus

There are dreams
that you have dreamed
that are etched into your eyes.

There are dreams
that you have dreamed
that resignation can’t disguise.

There are dreams
that you have dreamed . . .
O, I’ve dreamed them, esteemed them.

Like fire,
desire
flares most brightly as it dies.



Jimbo
by Michael R. Burch

for Jimmy Connors

Pounce like a panther,
all sinew and nerve;
attack, arched in anger,
your quarry—the serve.
Imagine a moment
of glory to come
as you lunge for the path
of its flight through the sun.

Are you a Templar
like warriors of old,
forsaking your loved ones,
crusading for gold?
Or could it be
need for fame drives you on?
Do you soak up the cheers
as you dash through the sun?

As you battle those younger,
those stronger, more fleet,
still none can be fiercer,
less yielding, complete.
Oh, what drives you onward,
what makes you compete?

I think not the riches, acclaim, even love . . .
but your heart is incentive enough.



The Great GOAT Debate
by Michael R. Burch

The great GOAT debate
can no longer wait:
we MUST know who’s best, and know NOW!

Is it Jordan, Kareem,
or Hakeem the Dream?
Is it Gretzky, the Rocket, or Howe?

Is it O.J. or Brady,
or are they too shady?
Tom Burleson or Monte Towe?

But now that I’m thinking
and done with my drinking,
before I make friends with a large purple cow ...

It’s the Babe, let’s get serious!
Babe Didrikson Zaharias!
Let the Ultimate GOAT take a bow.

Mildred Ella “Babe” Didrikson Zaharias was a basketball All-American, a baseball and softball star, a professional golfer who accumulated ten major championships, and a track and field legend who won two gold medals and a silver in three different disciplines at the 1932 Olympics while setting four world records in the process. She was also an expert diver, roller-skater, bowler and billiards player. Didrikson won the 1932 AAU track and field team championships while competing as an individual, by winning five of the eight events she entered and finishing second in another. She remains the only track and field athlete, male or female, to have won individual Olympic medals in a running event (hurdles), a throwing event (javelin), and a jumping event (high jump). Despite taking up golf in her mid-twenties and having to wait until age 31 to regain her amateur status, Didrikson won 17 straight women's amateur tournaments, an unequaled feat. Altogether, she won 82 golf tournaments. She made the cut at two men’s PGA golf tournaments, the only woman to do so, and she did it sixty years before any other woman even tried. In 1934 exhibition games, after being taught the curve ball by Dizzy Dean, she pitched one scoreless inning against the Dodgers and two scoreless innings against the Indians. Didrikson still holds the world record for the longest baseball throw by a woman. The world has never seen anyone like her.

“She is beyond all belief until you see her perform ...Then you finally understand that you are looking at the most flawless section of muscle harmony, of complete mental and physical coordination, the world of sport has ever seen.” – Grantland Rice, considered by many to be the greatest sportswriter of all time



Ring-a-Ling Bling
by Michael R. Burch

The ring
thing
is mostly bling.

Determining an individual athlete's greatness by counting championship rings (i.e., team success) makes no sense to me and seems disrespectful to all-time greats like Ernie Banks, Charles Barkley, Elgin Baylor, **** Butkus, Ty Cobb, Michelle Kwan, Karl Malone, Dan Marino, Marta (who may be the greatest female soccer player of all time), Barry Sanders, John Stockton, Fran Tarkenton and Ted Williams. Perhaps the best example is the player most cited for rings these days: Michael Jordan. In reality, Jordan didn't win a ring his first six years and was 0-6 against
the Larry Bird Celtics and lost two more playoff series to the Isiah Thomas Pistons. Were Bird and Thomas the better players, or did they simply have better teams? The answer seems obvious.
Jordan only began to win rings after he was joined by outstanding players like Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, et al, and even then it took time for that team to jell. Jordan was a transcendentally great player before he won a ring. If he had failed to win rings because he never had good-enough teammates, would that make him a lesser player? Judging individuals by team success or failure makes no sense, unless Jordan was a lesser player for six years while his teams struggled and then he miraculously became the GOAT when more capable players showed up. Ditto for LeBron James. The first thing he does after changing teams is use his influence to get better players to join him. LeBron is not foolish enough to believe rings are won by individuals.



The Ring Thing (is entirely Bling)
by Michael R. Burch

The ring
thing
is entirely bling.

Michael Jordan was zero-for-six
against the Larry Bird Celtics;
moreover he was twice sent home
by Isiah’s Pistons;
his ring case only began to gleam
when he had Horace, Scottie and B.J. on his team.

Thus the ring
thing
is bling.



The Ballad of King Henry the Great
(aka Derrick Henry)
by Michael R. Burch

Long live the King!
Send him victorious,
happy and glorious,
long to reign over us:
Long live the King!

Long live the King!
Send him like Sherman tanks
Mowing down cornerbacks,
Stiff-arming tiny ants:
Long live the King!



No T.O.
by Michael R. Burch

Lines written after the aptly-named Eric Eager said, “A. J. Brown is Terrell Owens.”

I’m young, I’m big-hearted,
but I’m just getting started.

I’m running my own race
at my own **** pace.

T.O. belongs in fabled Canton town,
but I’m A. J. Brown.

The second stanza was actually written by A. J. Brown, a budding poet, and published in the form of a tweet.



Charlie Hustle
by Michael R. Burch

for Pete Rose

Crouch at the plate,
intensity itself.

Follow the flight
of the streak of white
with avid eyes
and a heartfelt urge
to let it fly.

Sweep the short arc,
feel the crack of a clean hit,
pound the earth
toward first.

Edge into the base path,
eyes relentlessly relentless.

Watch his every movement;
feel his every thought;
forget all save his feet;
see him stretch
toward the plate ...
and fly!

Fly along the basepath
churning up the dirt,
desire in your eyes.

Slide around the outstretched glove,
hear the throaty cry,
"He's safe!"
And lie in a puddle of sunlight
soaking up the cheers.

A Texas Leaguer dropping
to the left-field side of center
sends you on your way back home.

Take the turn past third
with fervor in your eyes
and a fever in your step,
the game just strides away ...
take them all and then
slide your patented head-first slide
across the guarded plate.

Pause in the dust of your desires,
loving the feel of the scalding sun
and the roar of the crowd.

Shake your head and tip your cap
toward the clouds.

Slap the dirt
from your grass-stained shirt
and head toward the clubhouse ...
just doing your job,
but loving it
because it is your life.

This was an early attempt at free verse, written in my teens.



The Sliding Rule
by Michael R. Burch

If you’re not quite kosher,
like Leo Durocher;
or if you have a Pinocchio nose,
like Peter Edward Rose;
or if your life turns tragic,
like Ervin Johnson’s magic;
or if your earthly heaven
is stopped, like Howe’s, at seven;
or if you’re a disciplinarian
like Knight, but also a contrarian;
or if like Joe you’re shoeless
because you’re also clueless;
or perhaps like Iron Mike Tyson
you work a little vice in;
or like Daly working the jackpot
you’re less unlucky than merely a crackpot;
or like Ruth you’re better at drinking
than at dieting and thinking;
or perhaps like Andre Agassi’s
your triumphs are really your tragedies . . .
though The Judge might call you a sinner,
society’ll proclaim you a WINNER!



Tremble
by Michael R. Burch

Her predatory eye,
the single feral iris,
scans.

Her raptor beak,
all jagged sharp-edged ******,
juts.

Her hard talon,
clenched in pinched expectation,
waits.

Her clipped wings,
preened against reality,
tremble.

Published by The Lyric, Verses Magazine, Romantics Quarterly, Journeys, The Raintown Review, Poetic Ponderings, Poem Kingdom, The Fabric of a Vision, NPAC—Net Poetry and Art Competition, Poet’s Haven, Listening To The Birth Of Crystals (Anthology), Poetry Renewal, Inspirational Stories, Poetry Life & Times, MahMag (Iranian/Farsi), The Eclectic Muse

Keywords/Tags: Tremble, predator, raptor, hawk, eagle, falcon, talon, beak, wing, preen, preened, preening



Y2k: The Score
by Michael R. Burch

You should have known
when you were giving us wedgies,
pulling down our pants
in front of the cheerleaders,
playing frisbee with our slide rules . . .

that the years are exceedingly cruel.

You should have seen,
dashing across the gridiron
(as the cheerleaders screamed
in a *****-show of ecstasy),
playing the hero, the bull-necked **** . . .

the hands on the face of the unimpressed clock.

Though you were popular,
the backseat Romeo, the star
who drove the flashiest car,
though you lived out our dream
and took the prettiest girls to the dances, the prom . . .

you never had a chance.  Something was wrong.

We missed the big dances and proms
as we hissed and we schemed,
as we wrote and re-wrote our revenge
while you partied like Stonehenge.
Now your business is in debt to the hilt.
It’s too late to cry: Foul! Unsportsmanlike! Tilt!

One statement of ours and yours are all lost!
Your receivables, aging and gathering dust,
will yellow like ***** one soon-coming day.
While you were scoring, you missed this play—

Jocks: Zero. Nerds: Y2k.



Ordinary Love
by Michael R. Burch

Indescribable—our love—and still we say
with eyes averted, turning out the light,
"I love you," in the ordinary way

and tug the coverlet where once we lay,
all suntanned limbs entangled, shivering, white ...
indescribably in love. Or so we say.

Your hair's blonde thicket now is tangle-gray;
you turn your back; you murmur to the night,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.

Beneath the sheets our hands and feet would stray
to warm ourselves. We do not touch despite
a love so indescribable. We say

we're older now, that "love" has had its day.
But that which Love once countenanced, delight,
still makes you indescribable. I say,
"I love you," in the ordinary way.

Winner of the 2001 Algernon Charles Swinburne poetry contest; published by The Lyric, Romantics Quarterly, Mandrake Poetry Review, Carnelian, Poem Kingdom, Net Poetry and Art Competition, Famous Poets and Poems, FreeXpression, PW Review, Poetic Voices, Poetry Renewal and Poetry Life & Times
Mark Butkus Feb 2014
Miles from nowhere
Fighting with a sheet
Tossing and turning
Missing you so much
As you pull away from me
Telling me
That we had a deal
And I have nothing
More to offer
Than apologies
That will never be spoken
For you aren’t here to hear them

©Mark Butkus
Classy J Oct 2015
Yeah, death and grim with nothing but crime, Politics are whipping us yet they themselves are getting whipped by big companies. Corruption, destruction, left to die the way I was made, becoming dirt that's all we are. ***** gruesome ******, I am done playing this unfair game, I need a compass to get out of this butkus of a country. I don't want to hear you're quarrels when you still have your hand in society's cookie jar, why can't you be classy and go outside to a diner. I am so burnt out with all you sell outs, left to walk along my own way, why all you listen to crap rappers like Kanye. Rap is dead, hip-hop has no hip to hop too, this business is only interested in demeaning women, and having fancy things. They don't look at real issues anymore because they would rather sell lyrical ****, they don't care about you or anybody when it comes to making money. So go ahead buy that diamond ring and ride in your Lamborghini,  hope you enjoy it for at least a few seconds until you realize it doesn't make you happier, that it doesn't help you with anything. Status has it's hold on us, because after all it's all about that american dream, that most will never reach. Keep blowing all our money on the lottery, because you never know, well I do know that they are the ones who'll make the profit not you. Pipe dreams are just that dreams, hope is a desolate thing we live and breathe we are a bunch of bottom feeders that will attach to anything we get our mouths on; just like a leech. This is reality don't care if you believe me or not, it's ok you're still trapped in a box like a good little shrew.
Charles Sturies Mar 2017
Nicholas Tremulis, Wade Hayes,
two of my favorite singles but rather
obscure next to Paul McCartney
and Stevie Wonder.
Louis Lucas and Ronnie Levick,
rather obscure Bandstanders compared
to Kenny and Arlene and Justin and Bob.
Joe Mota and Ed Perry,
two obscure Illini compared
to **** Butkus and Johnny "Red" Kirk
Loren Tate and Bob Rasmussen,
two Champaign-Urbana New Gazette
sports writers not very known
compared to nationally based sports writers **** Shoop and **** Young
Obscurity vs. fame -
Is it necessary?
Just like
poverty vs. wealth -
Is that necessary?
I just wish we all could be wealthy and famous!

*Charles Sturies

— The End —