Long Anon Poems

The First Valentine Poem

Charles d’Orleans (1394-1465) has been credited with writing the first Valentine poem for his wife in 1415. Charles wrote the first Valentine poem in the first year of his captivity while being...

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Salvation of a Formalist, an Ode to Entropy
by Michael R. Burch

Entropy?
God's universal decree
That I get to be
Disorderly?
Suddenly
My erstwhile boxed-in verse is free?
Wheeeeee!



Eternal Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm...

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Medieval Poems



Wulf and Eadwacer
(Old English circa 990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My people pursue him like crippled prey.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

Wulf's on one island; I'm on...

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To a Daughter More Precious than Gems
by Otomo no Sakanoue no Iratsume
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Heaven's cold dew has fallen—
and thus another season arrives.
Oh, my child living so far away,
do you pine for me...

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Translations of the Oldest English Rhyming Poems

The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem aka The Riming Poem
Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem from the Exeter Book, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

(excerpt)
He who granted me life...

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LOVE POEMS I by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch: original poems and translations about passion, desire, lust, sex, a first date and dating, a first crush, a first girlfriend and...

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Grey Bane and the Dark Lord


Perched on a stalagmite jutting up from the floor
Hugo was staring at length across the cave
My eyes accustomed to the glow followed his gaze
Frozen in ice was my Love whom...

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"The White Lady of Skipsea"


Last night I dreamt 
I dreamed of you
a kind of dream 
within a dream

Diaphanous, 
my soul escaped, 
this firmament,
my immaculate heart
held hands, my fingers 
did entwine with 
handsome Morpheus

Crystal radiate
twin gossamer...

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Written 24 December 2023 
Placed 5th in :
No 1243 New Poem Only Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Brian Strand

                  ...

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https://www.poetryoutloud.org/poem/the-convergence-of-the-twain/

The Convergence of the Twain
                              ...

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All are lunatics, but he who analyses his delusion 
is called a philosopher.” Ambrose Bierce

                    ...

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"Who can bear to lose a tie
With a dog that is man’s best ally? .......by poet


"Here lies my dog, motionless in his kennel
unable to wag his tail as he always did.
yesterday when I saw him,...

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Circa sixty one years ago July 6th, 2001 -
birth of dear beloved wife

We now get along swimmingly
analogous to this bro and his older sis
on the cusp of our gifted silver married years
if her presence absent,...

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She grew up in the South, in the age of Jim Crow
In a town divided, no black friends did she know

She has her father's russet red hair and mother's walnut-brown eyes
The rarest combination, I surmise
She...

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The (tongue In Cheek) Balm...
Of "permanent" Sleep

Abbott, nothing beats the
     immortal heavenly reincarnation
     after mortality odometer
     unexpectedly set to zeros
preparing deceased
  ...

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Sunrise

		               What a splendour to watch the sun
             ...

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Offering Thanks to the Lord

                        Accept my thanks, Merciful Lord,
  ...

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Memories of a bleak childhood haunted him ever and anon.
Whenever he thinks of that dark day, a thousand blades cut through him.
Shocked by the ferocity of that memory, his mind still goes insane.
Old wounds are...

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Qu'ry this: a chivalrous charlatan, I,
          Dareth feign to pen thy prop'r aspect?
             ...

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Wonderworks
by Michael R. Burch

History’s
mysteries
abound
& astound,
found
(profound)
the whole earth ’round,
even if mostly
underground.


The Procrastinator’s Creed
by Michael R. Burch

It’s always, “Tomorrow, I’ll do it.”
Work? I eschew it.
I never collect money I’ve loaned
and the rest of this poem’s been postponed.


WHEN...

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Apoplectic curmudgeon fumbles...

Jumpstarting outstanding undertaking...
bringing jouncy, spectacularly crafted,
nuanced, zesty, noteworthy, creatively
spirited enlightened written poem.

This raggedy man doth inconsolably weeps
kept rudely awake whilst disobedient sheep
incur wrath of Little Bo Peep, she lambastes
protesting courtesy rambunctiousness being
future mutton...

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THE POET’S PANEGYRIC

“There’s someone I knew with talent unleashed
and a heart that had for so many relentlessly reached
This poet sought inspiration from the living and the dead
But I can tell you this about the poet...

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Talent
by Michael R. Burch

for Kevin Nicholas Roberts

I liked the first passage
of her poem: where it led
(though not nearly enough
to retract what I said.)
Now the book propped up here
flutters, scarcely half read.
It will keep.
Before sleep,
let me...

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Before it starts, I know the end,
But my heart still makes me go.
Into the depths of the throbbing dark,
Where strobes flash and minds run slow. 

Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
I clutch the alcohol: my only chance.
Boom!...

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Father time legendarily and Omni potently 
 existentially linkedin, binding cradle to grave 
since advent of homo sapiens, the whiffed bald credo 
 an employee most adhere ta have 
and keep source of income, subtly...

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