Long Ali Poems

With my Uyghur poetry translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets who are being sent to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps.

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Asylum seekers, will...

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Perhat Tursun

Perhat Tursun (1969-) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Born and raised in Atush, a city in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Tursun began writing poetry...

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I’m A “Street Fighter” 
You see the “Wings” CHUN 
LI
“BRUCE WAYNE”
 “LEROY”
“LU”
KAME
“THE LAST DRAGON BREATHS”
You don’t want “NUN”-CHUCK
NORE IS ANY ENTITY
Check my IP MAN
my Impulse 
 “Ki”
I’m the “1ONE” Fearless 
Jackie’s First Strike “Unleashed”
In a...

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Ali's Song
by Michael R. Burch
for Muhammad Ali

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river,...

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Quelle vicende vissi fino in fondo.
Quando mi riappropriai della mia vita
Se questo è un uomo chiesi a tutto il mondo.”
Those events I lived through and through.
When I again impropriated of my life
If this is a...

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December 14, 1965           

"Mr. Samuel Cooke. Sam Cooke??
You been in that casket for three days..
You a long way from Chicago, son?"

And Sam said, "What happened
Where...

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IT’S A MAD WORLD In a Lancashire Accent.

I went to the Confectioners today, there was a long queue outside, a metre apart, and it had started to rain. 
The assistant behind the counter had shiny...

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Neda 
You died in protest in Iran.                            ...

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Thank You!...

It's Black history month, so we come to celebrate, 
all the hues of brown that made our nation great! 

From Fredrick and Harriet to Mandela, and Muhammad Ali, because of the stance they took,...

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Waiting waitng...... 
For the all-mighty godot 
godot godot.....I ask myself 
Where are you? 

I have searched the 
tempestuous seas 
I have toiled the arid desert 
All to no avail 
I have defiled timidity into the...

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A rising sun burns like a solar flare
  from St....

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Whoever might with just free words beside
Speak of the blood and in full too of sores
Which I saw now, with a narration wide?

Any speech will sure fail to open doors
To our sermon and for the...

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Burn
by Michael R. Burch

for Trump

Sunbathe,
ozone baby,
till your parched skin cracks
in the white-hot flash
of radiation.

Incantation
from your pale parched lips
shall not avail;
you made this hell.
Now burn.

Keywords/Tags: burn, earth, environment, fire, future, nature, natural, planet,  climate, pollution,...

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Well, here we are in the Araneta Coliseum
In Cubao, Quezon City in the Philippines
To witness two modern boxing Gladiators
Their prowess, stature, about to be seen

This will be the third between the WBC, WBA
Stepping into the...

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Us kids on the scrap heap estate, we were never going anywhere
poverty deprivation criminal activity was here to stay
Social Services, poor bastards, had no idea what to do
no, no one had a blasted clue
then, some...

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My pen is loaded and I'm not taking any prisoners
I've been held hostage by depression for too long, so I'm sorry for not having many visitors 
I've been going through it, and have spent many...

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A bullfrog and a butterfly both chanced upon each other.
‘My dear, you are an ugly beast!’ the bullfrog dared to utter.
‘Why froggy,’ gasped the butterfly, astounded by his words.
 ‘My beauty is unparallel while yours...

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Una donna rattristita e velata dal pianto,
guarda verso un mare
piu' squallido di questo invernile mattino: 
rimpiangendo i pensieri dolci
cullati dalla nostalgia di ieri
che non sara' facile dimenticare!

Una nave parte,
si ode il suo rombo...
si infrancono
onde tempestose
sulla...

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Don't mess with me I'm an the epiphany
 I'm about to sneeze, I ain't no sleeves
Better watch it
Yo, yourself check 
yourself relinquished yourself 
wrecked yourself
 to be built I'm blessed
 admitting it or not I'll...

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still the climbing green lianoid lass


her tender tendrils torn  


massive metal lying like a cutlass


in her lap forlorn


                ...

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Unquotabe quotes: Dancers - XXIII

Dance like Cassius Clay, Sting like Muhammad Ali.
The dancing Dervish’s ethereal trip makes the Sufi’s Qawwali breathlessness sound like the radio-astral waves dashing on the beaches of their consciousness.
The only unlicensed...

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I hate my life 
My souls are damaged it’s full of pure hell that I can’t take it back it’s like listening to that awful country depression music that you can’t stand and you just...

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Am I the Assassin 
        or the Undertaker

                   For Palani...

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These are the best sports poems by Michael R. Burch, Part II

The Locker
by Michael R. Burch

All the dull hollow clamor has died
and what was contained,
removed,
reproved
adulation or sentiment,
left with the pungent darkness
as remembered as the sudden...

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Ali’s Song
by Michael R. Burch

They say that gold don’t tarnish. It ain’t so.
They say it has a wild, unearthly glow.
A man can be more beautiful, more wild.
I flung their medal to the river, child.
I flung...

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