Long Angular Poems

Poems about Fathers and Grandfathers I

I translated the first six Native American poems for my father when he chose to enter hospice and end his life by not taking dialysis …


Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation/interpretation...

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Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch 

(dedicated to my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch Sr.)

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long...

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Poems about Children IV

Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch

Dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch, Sr.

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the...

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As darkness absorbed in my reveries, my usual lapse accommodated itself in height of melancholy but not in this conscience. Then I found myself in my room and my window opened. Everything in upheaval, a...

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Just watching raindrops slapping leaves
is better than anything requiring electricity
including fame and posterity. Monday
morning I walk over to the art museum
stand before Homer. I'm imagining
life in ancient Greece, the land largely
deforested to build a navy,...

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Serrated swathes of overwhelming savage gusts without compassion,
directionless dilatory daydreamer that  I am  ostensibly vulnerable,
to the serendipitous intrusion at a wispy sapphire cloud flaccid noon,
the minimal load  burdensome midpoint idle tranquil saunter,
meteorological...

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The  road  to my hometown was  a  long, and arduous one.
I  loved  the walk ,and the privacy  it  gave  me.
My  mind  was  awash...

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The same black cloud that rested over the field the morning after the mower put out the haystack floated over the tops of the silver-trees on the edges of the rose-garden. Through the silver-trees it...

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Written: February 22, 2025, for contest Sponsored by: Sara Jama

                         ...

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STROKIN’: PART THREE
THE FULLBACK

He was twenty-eight yards and
thirty-two seconds from the end of a career
He had broken several bones, had a permanent
limp, knew the burden of performance to be an
unforgiving weight like the heavy black...

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I was a compelling abstract painter, engrossed in the world of vibrant colors,
Like the endless intensities of rainbow hues, that cancel any need for others.

Beauty was was always in my naked eye, in warped images...

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Ah...herewith ma usual
     dose of pablum from this meal
lee mouthed muttering 
     doggerel wordsmith,
     who now writes...
     so here's...

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I was born at the edge of a field 
that captured the shadows at sunset
I was an adolescent, 
when I watched men plant odd, angular rocks
where a  strange, hollow tree sprouted,
maturing unnaturally fast.

I was...

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Hallowed be thy name "Love", thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth as it is done in heaven. 

Please give unto  me this day my daily bread, as I give that right...

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As little child walked in the field of flowers,
  Picking and smelling them as she grows,
  The pervading air fragrance of Guava
  The majestic mellow Mangoes too in wet season,
  The...

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Dusk dawns noticeably earlier each night in Schwenksville, Pennsylvania - yup

Which trend will continue some days before
winter solstice 2021 in Northern Hemisphere,
Tuesday, December 21 10:58 AM.
Yes, interestingly enough earliest sunset date(s)
along eastern United States
will occur...

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Ephemeral Recollections of the Passage of Time 

Ephemeral recollections of the passage of time  
General inspections of a population in decline
Congenital directions of a genealogy in scientific refine 
Perennial distortions of a perspective in...

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II

You had said when I kidded you? After all I'm not going to be far away? Now you are put to rest?In a place dug and slabbed for you alone As if you were not...

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Gentoo Adelie one must wish to know.
One must want to see the sights
the ages of unseen areas.
There for al men to Marvel
the Creation only seen
by God.


Here I present to you
from the angular spectrum of loght
might...

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Wandering the roads.  It has me under a spell even at this juncture in my life.
Even when spiked brambles
 scrape my eyelids or those tender foot soles are  being  twisted by tooth-like...

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Your Long Angular Feet

You don’t know me, but
I been riding here in this trundling lounge car
for two hours now, watching 
you and your long angular feet,
while rumbling over these burdened tracks,
to silent Garden City, up...

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I heard your words 
                  And not one to my liking
On a cool fall day, you say I...

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Angular sunlight danced on the placid waters of the steel-gray  lake. Those waters damned up upon picturesque farm are for cattle and their plentiful young calves to drink. Not only one such farm along...

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The sun receded quietly on a relaxing siesta, as 
Calm clouds of the mid-afternoon smiled henced,
The beat of the drums provideth dancing rhythm
As she moved in pure elegance with harmony, to
A style of danced buoyantly...

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They asked me what I wanted
For they would bestow it to me
But to be unambiguous in what I wanted

I wanted a yellow house
Painted in canary yellow
With a neat white trim all over.
With the most triangular...

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