Long Arcs Poems

These are early poems of mine, written as a high school student in the 10th grade. 

as Time walked by
by Michael R. Burch

yesterday i dreamed of us again,
when
the air, like honey,
trickled through cushioning grasses,
softly flowing,...

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Charles d'Orleans: a Medieval Marvel


Spring
by Charles d’Orleans (c. 1394-1465)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab...

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Medieval Poems

How Long the Night
anonymous Middle English lyric, circa early 13th century AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

It is pleasant, indeed, while the summer lasts
with the mild pheasants' song ...
but now I feel the northern...

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Spring
by Charles d'Orleans (c.1394-1465)
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

Young lovers,
greeting the spring
fling themselves downhill,
making cobblestones ring
with their wild leaps and arcs,
like ecstatic sparks
struck from coal.

What is their brazen goal?

They grab at whatever passes,
so we can...

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Oasis
by Michael R. Burch 
 
for Beth
 
I want tears to form again
in the shriveled glands of these eyes
dried all these long years
by too much heated knowing.
 
I want tears to course down
these parched cheeks,...

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Oft in My Thought
by Charles D'Orleans
translation by Michael R. Burch

So often in my busy mind I sought,
Around the advent of the fledgling year,
For something pretty that I really ought
To give my lady dear;
But that sweet...

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Something strange

and unexplainable comes this way,
this way, it comes to us sly and fast, 
some say, perhaps, 
it has already arrived, 
it walks unseen, in the midst of all, of us 

we go about our...

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POEMS ABOUT EROS AND CUPID

These are translations of ancient Greek poems about Eros. Eros was the Greek counterpart of the Roman god Cupid. While today we tend to think of Cupid as an angelic cherub...

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Don't you think that this title is darkly divine?
But, of course, there will have to be weirdness that’s funny,
Though my nightmares are many and have complex arcs
There’s some risk here I might have to work...

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It is so hard to let go of love,
lovingly.

It sharks, 
unpeels more gut more quickly
than reel or reeler ever lost
in all those years of lazy inches
in and out:
casting,
winding in and playing out,
hardly fishing, rarely catching
anything
from...

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yeah, right ...
do you really think I believe that?
that I'll swallow that pill?
look at the damn lines on this brow ...
do you think they were etched
by happenstance??
not even CLOSE, sweetheart
I earned those ragged rivulets one-by-one
and...

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Ghosts of Christmas Past

I do not fear the ghosts
of my Christmas past.
My yearly visit with each one
is a gift
a present
for this one day

I drive out to Lantzville Beach
and bring my dog along
My mother loved dogs...

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Me: "Bing, the intended rhyme scheme for the poem below is ABABAB; and I made additional changes in line 9 of the poem in order to improve its meter and make more vivid and clarify...

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Ooh a scented grape graphic. Now that's wisdom. Contained a logical pattern in a juice cup. Heron haven heaping. Wisdomstic of a Judas flaw. Consealed in Sanskrit. Heavenly heaping cream on a very large bun....

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 “looking back, I’m ashamed of what I was
I’m different now, though not without flaws
Each crest becomes a trough, as we move on
God slowly steers soul towards a new dawn” Unseeking Seeker 

Life is like...

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I remember the night I first tasted sweet love.
Joining a boy for that magical, first time,
Under the glimmer of our own, fat moon,
Next to a silvery lake, sampling the divine.

We explored and shared the ultimate...

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I was a whimsical, interior designer, bringing colors and joy into living spaces,
Subtly changing neighborhoods and lives, like vibrant arcs the rainbow traces.

People were as dissimilar as their houses, the both of them rather fascinating,
Like...

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This nonestablishmentarian (Iman) kant riff!
Otherwise titled as: Thanksgiving
nothing more'n gobbledygook 
we stuff ourselves with.

Mine suburban outpost 
approximately thirty seven plus miles
southeast of where liberty bell marks
history upon cobblestone streets 
where sounds of silence 
from walking...

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

                         ...

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These are poems about shadows, poems about darkness, poems about shades in the form of ghosts and spirits...



Shadows
by Michael R. Burch

Alone again as evening falls,
I join gaunt shadows and we crawl
up and down my room's...

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In the moorlands of desires, 
I've forever sung choruses of
fertile faith, amidst the flock 
of bleeding birds, sprinkling
heartbeats on lush olive herbs, 
In the dream of retracing their 
scintillating season of beachy spring. 
'Hope' had...

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Might it be a pool or wishing well
with rainbow ripples round it wound
within an enchanted cosmic dell
of a fabulous world newfound—

or perhaps a spacetime passageway
that tunnels through regions yonder
to place where poets come out to...

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The new roves are not like the old,
They purvey an unwieldy aspect
To their elderly kindred folk;
Even on this steep hill forms encroach
Upon an edifice grand of bygone grandeur;

 So to ‘Ghurt Muire’ that Jacobean domain
With...

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Invitations to the Gala
issued by a grave impala
were highly sought out missives 
by the bold and the submissive 
Those omitted uttered curses
shook angry fists or heavy purses
Had they but known that
the price of  admission
was...

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I was browsing a comic book
in the store yesterday,
surprised to find superheroes
obsessed with being gay??
Now this seemed rather strange to me
because I understood
comics are power fantasies
of heroes doing good.
And why did they all keep talking?
Text...

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