#gull
I like to soar through life
On the wings of a gull
Wind on my feathers
It takes a big toll
Then I met someone
Who creates her own sun
Lights up each room
And makes things more fun
Just fill in the blanks
With words like “you”
You and I
All sad and blue
Oct 7, 2025
Oct 7, 2025 at 11:48 PM UTC
If I could gull, I
would comfortably eat fish --
near the herring stall.
Jul 27, 2023
Jul 27, 2023 at 3:56 AM UTC
Midsummer-Eve: the Flight of the Faeries
by Michael R. Burch
What happened to the mysterious Tuatha De Danann, to the Ban Shee (from which we get the term “banshee”) and, eventually, to the druids? One might assume that with the passing of Merlyn, Morgause and their ilk, the time of myths and magic ended. This poem is an epitaph of sorts.
In the ruins
of the dreams
and the schemes
of men;
when the moon
begets the tide
and the wide
sea sighs;
when a star
appears in heaven
and the raven
cries;
we will dance
and we will revel
in the devil’s
fen . . .
if nevermore again.
Keywords/Tags: Druids, Banshee, Picts, Scots, Scottish, fairies, glade, raven, gull, King Arthur, Arthurian, Morgause, Merlin, round table, knights, England, stone, Excalibur, chivalry, Camelot, Uther Pendragon, Colgrim, Saxon
Apr 16, 2020
Apr 16, 2020 at 10:09 PM UTC
The Pictish Faeries
by Michael R. Burch
Smaller and darker
than their closest kin,
the faeries learned only too well
never to dwell
close to the villages of larger men.
Only to dance in the starlight
when the moon was full
and men were afraid.
Only to worship in the farthest glade,
ever heeding the raven and the gull.
The invincible Roman legions were never able to subdue the Scottish Picts, and eventually built Hadrian’s Wall to protect themselves! Did the Picts give rise to our myths of fairies, elves and leprechauns? Keywords/Tags: Picts, Scots, Scottish, fairies, glade, raven, gull, King Arthur, Arthurian, Morgause, Merlin, round table, knights, England, stone, Excalibur, chivalry, Camelot, Saxon
Apr 16, 2020
Apr 16, 2020 at 9:59 PM UTC
Kin
by Michael R. Burch
for Richard Moore
1.
Shrill gull,
how like my thoughts
you, struggling, rise
to distant bliss—
the weightless blue of skies
that are not blue
in any atmosphere,
but closest here ...
2.
You seek an air
so clear,
so rarified
the effort leaves you famished;
earthly tides
soon call you back—
one long, descending glide ...
3.
Disgruntledly you ***** dirt shores for orts
you pull like mucous ropes
from shells’ bright forts ...
You eye the teeming world
with nervous darts—
this way and that ...
Contentious, shrewd, you scan—
the sky, in hope,
the earth, distrusting man.
Published by Triplopia. Able Muse and The HyperTexts
Keywords/Tags: Gull, sky, blue, atmosphere, air, sea, tides, waves, shores, shells, flight, glide, man, world, trust, distrust
Mar 16, 2020
Mar 16, 2020 at 5:55 AM UTC
In the swash zone
a desperate crab somehow overturned,
belly-up. Dome-backed, helpless,
she twitches feet and claws
grasping only air
as seagulls gather, smacking lips.
Shall I intervene?
Who do I favor, crab or gull?
Frankly I have problems with both personalities.
Can’t ignore a creature in distress.
(Who programmed that?)
Wiggle my toes into damp sand beneath the beast.
Flip.
With nary an acknowledgement, crab scuttles
sideways to a spot in the wave wash
where in a flutter of little legs she half-buries herself,
eyeballs above.
Seagulls scream curses.
What did I expect, a thank you?
Jun 25, 2017
Jun 25, 2017 at 1:23 PM UTC
twin gulls at the ready!
resting and fidgeting atop a rock outcropping
sister galactic spaceships from cowboy bebop
ancient cutters of the sky, cloud divers and dividers
efficiency is key, swiveling in crisp circumferences
feathered razorblade acrobats
mother nature’s surplus fish-killers
spend their days as lazy air athletes
never in the sea deeper than their beaks
Dec 26, 2016
Dec 26, 2016 at 6:00 PM UTC
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
—The Serenity Prayer
I. Heron
I was born arrow-straight, built for flying,
Three skipping stones past Otter Creek, hollow
Bones blanketed by slate gray, blue stones slight
And callused by well-worn prayers and shallow
Swells of minnows — subterranean aches —
And water cold on yellow scales, hardened
By the calamity of sunsets, lakes —
The drowning weight of too many pardons.
Dip low, tend this broken shoreline sweetly,
Spread shadowed wings and break honeyed silence.
Forgiveness take flight at dusk, discreetly
Written in psalms. Tepid soul find balance
Between the calm, a resting river space
This old trembling mind cannot displace.
II. Quetzal
After the storm, the chaos and quiet
Meet like dew poised on timid fingertips
And shallow grasses to quell the riot
Stirring inside. Fix fragments of this ship
Made of broken parts. My soul’s petrichor:
Inhale failure with a benediction
That fills tired lungs with bravery, before
Nature proposed expectations — fiction
Taut and mended by truth. The earth exhales
In breaths refreshed by rain, accompanied
By loudening trills and harmonious tales —
The tremor of circumstance, and the need
To continue existence like the weeds
That grow in sidewalks despite human greed.
III. The Pelican and the Gull
American Magicicadas choose
To surface seventeen years after birth
For the purpose of recreation. The Blue
Pelican cannot quietly unearth
The patterns of the tide without the gull,
But she does so with tireless trials
And the moon at her back — the lunar pull
Shaping stray shells for a little while.
Twenty-one years of tawny solitude
Shattered by innate desires, buried
Deep by stubborn aches, and kindly allude
To breathing for the first time. Weight carried
And lifted by rekindled hope, reaching
Sands like a button shell kissing the beach.
IV. Kingfisher
I pondered self-acceptance before diving
Into seas uncharted, with the patience
Of Tibetan monks softly harvesting
Grains of sand on an abandoned shore. Since
Emptiness is impermanence, we change
Like shifting seas suspended in nature,
Born from the crease of God’s hand — rearranged
Flaws bound by circumstance. Come close. Nurture
This silent heart into awakening.
Beyond these gray waters surges the sun,
Hopeful in the wake of a newfound spring,
Ochre and alizarin. We become —
Aware that no one saves us but ourselves,
With self-worth rising in tremendous swells.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 4:07 PM UTC
The door out back from a cosy hamlet
is too a thorny one that is not often tread
Just when all seems certain and settled
life comes knocking and seething.
And you go walking the starry path,
the wayward path, the meandering path
to nine yards of nowhereness.
Questions, some are never settled. Invitations
some are never forever. Rhythms are not
made to last, just like the seasons. Winters
are the longest, deepest and darkest
that etch their cold onto pestles of the heart
that want to pound down memories a tonic.
Emerge, shadowy oars, from mists unraveling
by the shorey oceans lining the soul,
Slow here are the sailboats of hope
that we unfurl in sodden winds
and keep rowing on, on to the shoreless zons.
when the cold gets to the bones, I make a bonfire
of all my pasts, longings and belongings,
oh the late gull that shrieks past the silences.
All, but love. That, I cannot burn,
for that I am, I loved, and will love,
change forms, change norms, but that I will.
Mar 16, 2015
Mar 16, 2015 at 3:08 PM UTC
gulls and terns spin in the air
as waves lullaby the sleepy dreamers
with grand tales and rich promise of paradise to be
found just over the horizons edge
sailors eye to the swift wind
sure hand to tackle and line
hearty men of salted liquid soil
grown to giants in the breakwaters thunder
but gentle that hands heart
when the tolling bell calls out the names of the lost
and the sea has swept away all but her witnessed tale
to leave the widows and forlorn child to
carve name to wall and mourn
past midnight now
a dead calm
and cloudless sky reigns
with a majesty of brilliant starlight
upon this sea reflecting the heavens slow march
i lay like a supplicant muted by the spectacle
to souls hunger this moment and place
shows a deeper meaning to thouse souls with eyes to see
a dead calm
and cloudless sky reigns
with a majesty of brilliant starlight
the old salt sailor breaks into deep song
that sooths and lends hardy meal to the heart
hold fast young lad hold fast
the morning rushing forward brings
the breaking wave and unfolds sail with quick wind
and the sailors eye rejoices with
merry songs to measure the hour
and jauntily bring our fair seabird
back to her warm home
sea and sand in the salt sailors blood
and a kind heart guides the way
Mar 23, 2014
Mar 23, 2014 at 2:10 PM UTC