Best Ulysses Poems

Her head tilted back towards the darkened clouds,

Mocha curls rests on shoulder blades,

Lids shut tight hiding emerald eyes shedding crystals,

Water rushed from the grey sky,

Shades of ulysses butterfly flooded over flesh,

The drops pierced her tender pores,

Seeping under her pale skin,

Merging with her spirit as one,

Then...

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Inspired by The Sirens and Ulysses, oil painting by William Etty.

The painting depicts a scene from Homer's epic "The Odyssey," where the hero Ulysses (aka Odysseus) orders his crew to tie him to the mast of his ship so that he can hear the seductive...

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This is a story about a Butterfly

She escaped the Boilermaker
Through transformation. 
To transform required a period of incubation, 
a need to sleep to dream and 
the freedom of quiet self-contemplation - 
of course, such a transformation
required immense courage and determination 
to believe she could fly...

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'Twas well-known that Gen'ral Grant liked his rum

   But he knew how to make an army hum

      Lincoln said that if he knew

         Where Ulysses got his brew

  ...

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ULYSSES! AWAKE!
Are you not just as much an oar
as was the wind 
that fills misguided sails?

Your Ship! Your chart!
Your shooting of the stars!
Your warriors sick for home 
you've led them all astray, 
delivering to cyclops
and their play
and for the joy of sirens
undressed by moonlight
for the...

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Ulysses Wake
Is Ulysses not just as much an oar
as he is wind that fills misguided sails?
O! Ship! Your chart and shooting of the stars,
those warriors sick for home you've led astray, 
delivering to cyclops and their ploy
and all the joy of sirens. Sleep dear boy.
You...

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(Dedication: For Demetrios Trifiatis)


Troy and sure war, Trojans and Greeks;
Report mad flaws -- rouse warriors' peak;
On for ten years, on both sides dwell;
Yes tear for tear, yes death did well!


Urge firms glory, urge frames action;
Love of country, love of duty;
Yield to vain sire, yield to...

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An old biologist named Ulysses
  Had a job identifying species
    Ulysses was ****-backward
    His technique manufactured
  'Stead of faces, he examined feces...

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Ulysses thought that he had lost
    Olympus’ wry smile
When his frail boat by waves was tossed
    Upon the Cyclops isle. 

He found that he had even more
    Which could be swiftly lost, 
And that what fate...

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ULYSSES

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell. 1

Cross legged I await 
Heavens...

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ALICE  MEETS  ULYSSES


On a string up in the sky  her activity was  flying a  cat. 
She just wouldn’t say, the  lips were sealed,
Up there with ceiling wax.  She said
I don’t  reveal secrets,   don’t  let...

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Shouts, Yells, Screams, Rants, Raves
Bullhorn-magnified Bombast
"Decapitate him!"
Why don't the police stop it?
What happened to enforcement?...

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I watched
the spider
fall
from the 
ceiling.

It tried
to climb
the wall

it fell.

It tried
again

it fell.

It tried

and fell
again -

and finally
it reached
the ceiling.

So strong
in will
to strive
to seek
to find
and not
to yield!...

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FROM THE ur POEMS



u-turn: another way to look at religion
by Michael R. Burch 
 
... u were borne orphaned from Ecstasy
into this lower realm: just one of the inching worms
dreaming of Beatification; u
would love to make a u-turn back to Divinity, but
having misplaced ur chrysalis,...

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Advice to Young Poets
by Nicanor Parra Sandoval
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Youngsters,
write however you will
in your preferred style.
Too much blood flowed under the bridge
for me to believe
there’s just one acceptable path.
In poetry everything’s permitted.



Byron
was not a shy one,
as peacocks run.
—Michael R. Burch

When I visited Lord...

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