Long Aloof Poems

Here and Hereafter
by Michael R. Burch

Life’s saving graces are love, pleasure, laughter ...
wisdom, it seems, is for the Hereafter.



Laughter’s Cry
by Michael R. Burch

Because life is a mystery, we laugh
and do not know the half.

Because death...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XI

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and...

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I love you only because I love you
by Pablo Neruda
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I love you only because I love you;
I am torn between loving and not loving you,
Between apathy and desire.
My heart vacillates...

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Sonnet LXXXI-LXXXIX

Day, and Night
by Michael R. Burch

The moon exposes pockmarked scars of craters;
her visage, veiled by willows, palely looms.
And we who rise each day to grind a living,
dream each scented night of such perfumes
as drew...

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World War II Poems and Holocaust Poems - IV - Primo Levi

Shema
by Primo Levi
translation by Michael R. Burch

You who live secure
in your comfortable houses, 
who return each evening to find
warm food, 
welcoming faces...

consider whether this...

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Prose Poems

Something
by Michael R. Burch

Something inescapable is lost?lost like a pale vapor curling up into shafts of moonlight, vanishing in a gust of wind toward an expanse of stars immeasurable and void. Something uncapturable is...

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Once upon a time there was a heartless man, he didn’t care for others and compassion he couldn’t understand
His heart was cold there was no love inside, although to the outside world he carried on...

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1.

                                  ...

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They weren’t thinking things all the way through as I weren’t able 
They took me for granite and used me in the wrong way possible 
I need some reassurance tonight to get through this plight...

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Long 'ere legends encountered finesse amidst flairs of passionate cravings,
thereupon, be a period wherein an episode occasioned an opportunity that will be reserved forever.
An outbreak of dismembering words are been exchanged between groups of rapscallions.
The...

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"A dressed day has disrobed into the depth of a drawer's nightstand." 

(Oh, how positively awesome that what can be sorted out in such an explanatory pattern that a difference would maketh a day.)

The muskiness...

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anxiety, intense -
but I am not frightened ...
my heart races ... I want to flee
my blood heats and lies to
my senses ...
'get out! go now! dear gawd, fool, run!!'
for you are formidable -
eighty inches tall,...

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Hard driven by the embarrassment,
                              ...

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My father and I did not share all that much,
More like passing a truck on the road
Parent’s squabbles I overheard offered me clues
And at times I caught glimpse of his load.

His freight always sealed with...

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What purpose do I choose to live;
remaining aloof from evil practice and intent?
What meaning can we find to live,
reversing "evil"
that could transcend our individual absence of identity?
Original Intent uncovers love-life's revolutionary invitation
into mutual belonging.

What is...

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“Upon Waking”


Slumber has its upsides 
while the outside runs around
like a split fowlyard, 
cacophonous 
pecking at each other 
and at the ground…

Elsewhere, 

like dull background noise
through the fog of dream 
the sound of the gamble...

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My continuing impatience problem
with smug fundamentalists
self-asserting holier than thou moral positions,
is that Christ's main point is not
Holier Than Others, like Chosen People
but Holier With Thou,
as one interdependent EarthBound BodyMind.

British King James monotheistic readers
digest at AntiLiteraturist...

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For several years I'd worked as a life coach, assisting clients day by day,
Like blazing colors in the shank of the evening, chases deep blues away.

It was an occupation that I enjoyed, as helping others...

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I have always wanted something wonderful out of life
But my mother said there is always a price
It has nothing to do with land, money or property 
Someone has always been there for me and I...

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My mother always took the bus.  I never understood why.  We had a car, but she insisted on taking the bus uptown.  I think she did it because father would not let...

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I can feel my spirit crying 
And I can tell that someone is dying
I can feel my spirit crying 
When a special tear drop from my eyes
It is not a tear of worry,
Neither is it...

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In glamor-light of sunset
a new crowd of cumulus clouds arrive
and revive a sepia sky-scene—
unworldly woolgatherers gather
spinning fantasy fluff into quixotic yarns
of debutantes dancing with honeymoon hunger;
their dewy eyes blurred by the sawdust of stardust

pseudo-princess-pleasure-seekers
—drama daring...

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How dare you walk around all cocky and self righteous
Nailing your ASS is going to be my final gift
U know what u did covering it up because you had to
You don't fool me Doc I...

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by the interpretation comes perception—the faraway dream, the symbols—or the way I attack myself—in harassing my screams. upon a wishbone, to feel some semblance, listening to darker parts; the curse of the psychiatrist, hassled for...

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Men, do not give up your dreams for these girls, keep sleeping. 


My cousin had read this phrase to me in August, when my wife left me for a harvard graduate that moved in our...

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