Best Chorales Poems

My choir director
                    is a painter
    a music stand her easel
            ...

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Song of the Four Seasons 2-16-24
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Song of the Four Seasons

Jagged steel gray skies
Compose barren bough sculptures
Midnight days, Orion nights
White fire crystal symphonies.

Spring wriggles adagio toes,
Sunbeams thaw tuneless meadows,
Daffodils dream yellow melodies
Blossoms burst fragrant ballads.

Downbeats of summer rainstorms
Silver sonatas of moonlight
Heat rises in crescendos,
Cool waves soothe...

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PRINCESS DIANA POEMS

Fairest Diana: an Epitaph for Princess Diana
by Michael R. Burch

Fairest Diana, princess of dreams,
born to be loved and yet distant and lone,
why did you linger?so solemn, so lovely?
an orchid ablaze in a crevice of stone?

Was not your heart meant for tenderest passions?
Surely your...

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Fingers intertwined in 
  wondrous oneness
  together foreverness
  breathtaking bliss

Eye to eye in
   lyrical longing
   melodic memories
   soul symmetry

Backs turned to 
  bygone brokenness 
  solitary sanctums
  heartbroken hibernation

Face to face in 
...

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Oracle 
  psalmic 
    on 
      elysium 
          winds
          &
        ...

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Pandemic Prayer
by Michael R. Burch

I pray tonight
the starry light
might
surround you.

I pray
by day
that, come what may,
no dark thing confound you.

I pray ere the morrow
an end to your sorrow.
May angels' white chorales
sing, and astound you.

Keywords/Tags: pray, prayer, blessing, coronavirus, pandemic, starry, light, angel, angels, sing, white, chorales,...

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Here We Shall Remain
by Tawfiq Zayyad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like twenty impossibilities
in Lydda, Ramla and Galilee ...
here we shall remain.

Like brick walls braced against your chests;
lodged in your throats
like shards of glass
or prickly cactus thorns;
clouding your eyes
like sandstorms.

Here we shall remain,
like brick walls obstructing...

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Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (c. 1460-1530)
loose translation/modernization/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

after William Dunbar

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that is held most dear—
except only that you are merciless.

Into your...

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Epitaph for a Palestinian Child
by Michael R. Burch

I lived as best I could, and then I died.
Be careful where you step: the grave is wide.

This poem has also been titled "Epitaph for a Child of Gaza" and it has become my most popular poem on...

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Hush now three days yet to past.
My grandmother joy was fulfilled with laughter.
The Christmas spirit was upon us once again.
The tree is surrounded with presents and chorales sing door-to-door.
The occurrence of Christmas would be wonderful.

The cards and letters came in big sacks.
We as adolescents would...

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Cheers to Christmas, 
A Joyous Season’s nigh.
Cheers to hot & spicy wassail
Keeping Christmas Spirits high.

Cheers to our Fellow Man.
Best wishes, one & all!
Cheers to Christmas carols,
Chorales of bells chime “Deck the Halls”! 

Cheers to hanging mistletoe,
A holiday kiss at every door.
Cheers to Christmas stockings
Awaiting candy,...

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W hen duskfall glows,it brings a hundred sounds
O ver the vales, birds echo a chant’s rhyme
N otes tuneful as flint of stardust abounds;
D elighting a nightscape with lilts sublime…
E ach mystic hum rings like an abbey's bell
R arer than chorales of seas's rhapsody;
F luttering mildly...

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A single rose was silenced


Floriated chorales resound in Kensington


For Mr. Brian Strand's:
Spaces...

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Poems about the Coronavirus II


This World's Joy
(anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 14th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything comes to naught.



Fowles in...

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Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then scuttled inside to be safe, out of reach?

Might I lift...

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