Long Acceptable Poems

I am exhausted by bad government excuses to avoid responsibility
and I am, today, sick with excuses to avoid my own responsibility,
well within the bounds of my self-governing authority:

"I'm just a mortal human. I make mistakes.
I...

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Dad hit me only once, an upper cut to the solar plexus. It nearly lifted me off my feet. I was 17 then and already fairly tall, 6’1.” He was 48 and of medium height,...

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Galore of buzzfeeding, needling and scamming female hustlers...

with a scheming, loving, and enticing guise
alive and well seeking gullible guys
(once upon a time just like me),
who experiences close encounters
of masterly baited entrapment
on Facebook Messenger
and most likely...

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Blue Hunter's Moon of the Festival of Lights.
And the day of Vengeance of our Holy One to comfort all those who mourn.

Isaiah 61:3-11
I Proclaim the acceptable Generation or Year and Day of Yehoshua also known...

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Epigrams

Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that every leaf must finally fall,
it’s just that we can never catch them all.

Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover...

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Near Sainthood
by Mirza Ghalib
translation by Kanu V. Prajapati and Michael R. Burch

On the subject of mystic philosophy, Ghalib,
your words might have seemed deeply profound
and we might have pronounced you a saint...
if only we hadn't found
you...

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Charles d'Orleans: a Medieval Marvel


Spring
by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab...

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Medieval Poems

How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern...

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Spring
by Charles d'Orleans (c.1394-1465)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab at whatever passes,
so we can...

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The organic building of a coordinated artist
begins with reconstructing competitively clumsy LeftBrain technicians.

Whether learning to play the piano
or learning to communicate in some new language
or learning to adopt,
and/or adapt,
norms and nuances of some new cultural...

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Rondels, Roundels and Rondeaux

These are poetic forms similar to villanelles, with refrains (repeated lines) and sometimes double refrains.



Rondel: Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot...

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Oasis
by Michael R. Burch 
 
for Beth
 
I want tears to form again
in the shriveled glands of these eyes
dried all these long years
by too much heated knowing.
 
I want tears to course down
these parched cheeks,...

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Oft in My Thought
by Charles D'Orleans
translation by Michael R. Burch

So often in my busy mind I sought,
Around the advent of the fledgling year,
For something pretty that I really ought
To give my lady dear;
But that sweet...

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This is a translation from a Poem (Title - Niskriti) by Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel-Laureate philosopher poet (1861 - 1941) from India. The story successfully depicts the status of women in a patriarchal society of nineteenth...

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I hanker and pine for wood burning stove weather

I haint no spring chicken,
("Buk buk buk buk ba-gawk!")
but in Summer re: 
long in tooth sexagenarian 
nostalgic for the following imagery 
evoked yesterday with very little effort
(aside...

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Once upon a time, there were two little villages, Rowling and Tolkien, that lived in peace with each other.  Rowling and Tolkien had many, many children, some very young, others young, and a few...

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~ God  Is  True  ~
(The  Nonet )


~O~


 My  Holy Bible  is  super nice
 Surely  tells me that  God Is  True
 Fills my soul with Love...

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February 29th, 2024

Alternately titled: 111th leap year since 1582
the year Pope Gregory XIII world leader
(i.e. essentially paterfamilias among
Roman Catholic flock)
timely maneuvered around calendrical rock
and hard space implementing
viable system tracking years ad hoc
out of sync and...

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When still young,                                ...

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Evolution Not God

It is the case that there is no God,
He does not exist, he is not the one,
He is not there, he’s not everyone’s invisible puppet,
It is not personal, he is not the Son.

Evolution...

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Feminist ecotherapists,
deeply immersed in polycultural ecology,
a systematic teleology of cooperative nutrition economics,
remain rarely flushed out from their safe spots.

A self-isolating,
often eremitic,
subspecies,
with shamanic nature-as-spirit tendencies,
our most articulate mentors often wander off
to pray for,
breathe and suffer and...

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Bad ass beauty brought bedlam, and begat bastard child...
courtesy booty call minus preemptive measures
while plugg naughty bits of tarnished knight 
while he took tea and crumpets within mistress's boudoir

The following verses typed out some years...

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We have all gotten used to wearing our masks just like we do our bras and panties, now we need get used to wearing a muzzle in case we rub the "Woke" and "Snowflakes" up...

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Move on over ole Joe...

and let the youngbloods take the reins
infusing our promised land with hope.

You done good for America,
serving as laudatory President
from 2020 to the present
Vice President from 2009 to 2017,
and in the United...

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A fierce battle ensues for the soul
                         
   ...

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