Long Acheron Poems

Athenian Epitaphs II

These are ancient Greek epitaphs for lost family and friends, including dogs and other animals ...

Now his voice is prisoned in the silent pathways of the night: 
his owner's faithful Maltese... 
but will...

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Heat Lightening
by Michael R. Burch

Each night beneath the elms, we never knew
which lights beyond dark hills might stall, advance,
then lurch into strange headbeams tilted up
like searchlights seeking contact in the distance . . .

Quiescent unions...

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Because the charity of my native place
Obliged me, the broken branches I the picked up
Them giving back him, who was to debase.

Then we finally reached where had to leap
From the second turn to third, and...

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1	A plume of dirt and grime envelops sky;
		The hellish slug of gas does creep along.
		It casts an orb three hundred stories high
		Over the Sun and ends his morning song.
		The birds and trees now stand a...

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Achilles, His Heart and Soul Were Mortal
Part One- (Years Before Troy)

Achilles* woke, his slain foes calling out his name
hearing merciless woes, his sharpen sword they blame
looking at the heavens he saw the moon glowing blood...

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The Tumid River of Acheron (the journey) 
Part One- Final revision

Darkly,  the tumid rushing waters flow
where any man most wisely fears to go.
Liquid blackness singing in epic pain
torture, misery and cries of the insane!
Echoes...

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The Tumid River of Acheron (the journey) Part One-Revised

Darkly,  the tumid rushing waters flow
where any man most wisely fears to go.
Liquid blackness singing in epic pain
torture, misery and cries of insane!
Echoes of  Eperius...

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  DEVIL GO HOME- -
Git thee behind me, Satan;
Lucifer, Demon, Beelzebub;
Whatever your name is now, get up, get out go…
Oh, oh, oh no-
Devil this place is not your home;
Go on go away this I...

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The Tumid River of Acheron (the journey) Part 1

Dark the tumid, rushing waters flow
where man most wisely fears to go
Liquid blackness sings of epic pain
torture, misery and cries of insane
Echoes of evil Eperius in the...

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Morbid fascination (mine) as covid-19 pandemic...
foments rampant monopoly on bedlam

Wreaking ball (his stick) havoc (think ostensible
civil war scale not seen since Vietnam),
whereby microorganisms jamb
Homo sapiens immunity system
complements of gook
resembling green eggs and ham
necessitating Doctor Seuss

to...

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Ancient Greek and Roman Epigrams I

Wall, we're astonished that you haven't collapsed,
since you're holding up verses so prolapsed!
Ancient Roman graffiti, translation by Michael R. Burch

You begrudge men your virginity?
Why? To what purpose?
You will find no...

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Hades and Tormented Souls (the Dwelling)
   (presenting a fragment of the second part promised)

Where the dark wind blows, lies abound
deep into a ravenous, hellish pit.
Lost souls cry and moan deep under ground
under evil...

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It’s not just Jesus who rose into grace with scars from nails and the cross

Trees grow new branches from knots like wounded soul’s blemish’s scars

A rainforest’s undergrowth thrives in the mist of weeping from heaven

Ebony...

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Out of hell’s breath the Devil’s Coachman comes and turns
around the tale to woe twists as the world creeps backwards
underneath the clay slithering sacrificial savagery begins
 
Ghastly ghostly spectres watch on with soulless glee
under laid...

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Out of hell’s breath the Devil’s Coachman comes and turns
around the tale to woe twists as the world creeps backwards
underneath the clay slithering sacrificial savagery begins
 
Ghastly ghostly spectres watch on with soulless glee
under laid...

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Wicked memories haunt my dreams at night and stalk me during the daylight, denying me any measure of peace and tranquility. Please, take me to the river Lethe and rebirth me, so that I may...

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Charon—The Eternal Ferryman

The mythical ferryman extraordinaire of such keen gaze,
Who braves the Styx and Acheron in the deepest of haze.  

Charon is a most sordid God who relishes his work as the
“Ferryman of Hades,”...

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Persephone’s Finger
By Sy Roth


It wormed its way to the surface.
Pointy finger tested the air, 
Wriggled in a sensuous Fatima dance 
Etch-a-Sketching the crepuscular sky above,
Shaming the heavens for what lies below,
Marking its inky darkness
While the...

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I stand in the swamp by the riverbank 
clutching a coin I have stolen
as my heart still beats within my breast
It is only my spirit 
that has slipped away
to await the ferryman of Acheron
Charon who
skillfully...

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I sink, and drown in all my sorrows
Bring me to darkness where I can forget.
Grant me that privilege, let me burrow
My final resting place, my final bed.
Forget, life, every word I ever said.

"I swim in...

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Come Back Moses

Come back Moses, from yesteryear,
and do my bidding once again.
Go thee down and plumb the hatred
festering in the hearts of men.

See the caverns in their eyes,
their steel and glass alluring,
taste the bile of...

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A poem written for my friend Anna

You, special magical, you!
Did you just see my tears of pain,
How I in vain
tried to?
I want to...
I sit here hiding, in the rain.

No discrimination between
that one moist or the...

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Aw sweet Angel, it's you that I seek
all alone jotting up winds so bleak,
for so many hearts I have perversed.
You; another to wield my meanly little curse.

I am the Queen of manifest clay,
Craft my horns...

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Unto Acheron, great river of woe,
  the buried to the entrance gate are led,
in the underworld to Charon below
  to ferry across the souls of the dead.
Upon your lips, your eyes, a coin...

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Dotting about land mines eyes half closed 
Asleep she seems while walking unto this edge....
Repulsion taking hold fey flags his juggernaut: jostling
King snakes slithering past these planetoids searching for her lizard queen ?
Demimonde's state of...

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