Best Whitely Poems

October: I'm eighteen, shortcutting home
through an autumn-burnished churchyard -
copper-lustred leaves, moss-skinned stone -
a jaunty swing of skater skirt and arm,
college folder square-sturdy in my hand.
In...

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"Blue Dress"



Temptation 
Green as an 
Apple

Blue 
into the arms 
of Hell

Red 
"LIFE"
Read

the bite of an Apple
Stopped me short
and 

YOU,
despite
all 

Yellow Brick Road
Tornadoes

Stood by me
Silent, still,...

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Hot zones of danger,
dark places
where dense hearts go
Hearts that are cold as ice
Roll the dice ... 
take a chance on fatal corona exploration
Go ghetto orbital
and...

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I.

Oh please, not to fade so fast into the afternoon
The one that is scattering in a goldenly swooning loneliness
The one that is shattering at a...

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Colour hides in a whitely glow
every colour we’ve ever known 
Reflective rays a spectrum show

Coloured days, names and numbers
See the world through coloured wonders. 
Think...

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Renee Vivien Translations


Song
by Renée Vivien
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

When the moon weeps,
illuminating flowers on the graves of the faithful,
my memories creep
back to you, wrapped...

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roots hoarding stored sap
stick fingered rhodedandrons 
Color whitely hid...

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Dog Star

The clarity with which youthful vision perceives the world
Is increasingly fogged by the successive days of life.
Simple magnanimity is replaced by complex reservation.
Knowledge is...

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With a heavy heart we pray
Please keep death away
The skies are all grey
Does it matter what we say

God only takes the best
And guides them to...

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Yosa Buson haiku translations

On the temple’s great bronze gong
a butterfly
snoozes.
?Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hard to describe:
this light sensation of being pinched
by a...

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Tomorrow I'll see flowers white and I will dance with butterflies,
On grass uncut between my knees. They'll call me pal and gladly I,
Will love them...

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I stumble and fall
I am not strong 
I need help when I crawl
My road is uphill and long

Sunshine or rain
The struggle is real
Sometimes I need...

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Lauren became paralysed suddenly overnight, 
When she developed firm transverse myelitis, 
An inflammation of the spinal cord, a huge fright, 
Which gave no feeling chest...

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A Kind of Winter

Never to see you turn and smile
or smell your rain-wet hair
or feel your hand or hear your voice
or look into your heart-full...

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I came to AllSouls
looking for permanent sanctuary.

Sanctuary,
not only from a Rumpian absence of 
civility
and non-violent trust
and integrity
and compassion,
but also pro-actively for an orthodox health eco-school...

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