Long Auden Poems

Epigrams

Autumn Conundrum
by Michael R. Burch

It’s not that every leaf must finally fall,
it’s just that we can never catch them all.

Piercing the Shell
by Michael R. Burch

If we strip away all the accouterments of war,
perhaps we'll discover...

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Poems about Poems (I)



What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer
~~~underwater~~~
watching the shoreline blur
sees through his breath’s weightless bubbles...
Both worlds grow obscure.



Muse/Goddess
by Michael R. Burch

“What will you conceive in...

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State of the Art (II)

These are my "ars poetica" poems about the art and craft of writing poetry. 



What the Poet Sees
by Michael R. Burch

What the poet sees,
he sees as a swimmer 
~~~~underwater~~~~
watching the shoreline...

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Eric Mottram on the American literary and cultural scene during 1965-66 while he was the recipient of the American Learned Societies’ award for a year. (begun in the last post and to be continued)

January 2,...

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Take me to the tombstone 
let me touch the gray stone that stands
where life could not
I will put my face to that touchstone of deaf thunder,
What happened  to your breath baby brother,
what happened in...

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today i will wander to the brothel
those divine friends of Jesus
where i will intercourse
with the ladies in my growing Spanish
write some lines to ponder
while they wash clothes and bathe
i the balneologist with the brandy
we watch...

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A Search, A Quest For A Lost Paradise - 
a collaboration with Susan Ashley


I will take flight, into another zone
how far off to wander 'tis now not known
no regret, as dear point is to be...

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I will take flight, into another zone
how far off to wander 'tis now not known
no regret, as dear point is to be free
beyond sadness, into a joyful sea
to a purple land, a paradise realm
I hopeful...

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'The Journey'

Sight.
Sound.
Smell.
Taste.

The trains,
the tracks,
the rush, the haste.

The sweeties and toffees,
newspapers and coffees,

Cases and bags, e-cigs and fags,
pasty and tanned, iphone in hand,

The people who come and the people who go
and the Taxis that wait, as...

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Speechless at Auschwitz
by Ko Un
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

At Auschwitz
piles of glasses
mountains of shoes ...
returning, we stared out different windows.

Ko Un speaks for all of us, by not knowing what to say about the...

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PROFESSOR POETS

These are poems about professor poets and other “intellectuals” who miss the main point of poetry, which is to connect with readers via pleasing sounds and the communication of emotion as well as meaning.



Professor...

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Finally to Burn: Icarus, Resurrected
by Michael R. Burch

Athena takes me
sometimes by the hand

and we go levitating
through strange Dreamlands

where Apollo sleeps
in his dark forgetting

and Passion seems
like a wise bloodletting

and all I remember
upon awaking

is: to Love sometimes
is...

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POEMS FOR POETS X

US Verse, after Auden
by Michael R. Burch

“Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.”

Verse has small value in our Unisphere,
nor is it fit for windy revelation.
It cannot legislate less...

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****OUR ENEMIES IN DISGUISE***
Norman MacClain wrote, "it is those we live and love, and should know, who loot us"
But whether we like it or not they exist
For some are endowment
And others we got after birth
As...

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Poems about Poets

Elemental
by Michael R. Burch

for and after Dylan Thomas

The poet delves earth’s detritus—hard toil—
for raw-edged nouns, barbed verbs, vowels’ lush bouquet;
each syllable his pen excretes—dense soil,
dark images impacted, rooted clay.

The poet sees the sea...

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Just wanted to say a very big thank you to all you amazing poets who took the time to comment 
on my last post ‘Sunny Horizons’
I would have loved to thank each and every one...

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i was listening to Levertov read
one of her poems
and as she spoke my mind drifted
her words were of those moments
when manunkind sinks its' teeth
into the bowels of the earth
rapes untold but well known
riches for itself
my...

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ONE LINE

I’m remembering a class I taught at
Bohank Business School,
Poetry 101 –
The grading papers chore,
The mental anguish,
God. what a bore!

It seems that President Swink fancied himself
        gifted
In the...

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Oh final stanza

Title yet required

Men of mice

Oh Sancho Panza

O Wilde

Oh Auden juicy bone clock

Oh vagueties of meaning

Speak unto me in visions
of language only i may understand

Feed me grool as spaghetti soup

Until i plead please Sir,
May...

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           Poet Visitors in the Night



Asleep, I was, under my new forest green 
velvet and Sherpa throw.
With loving stockings to...

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Above: Wystan in fancy dress
as a beetle -1912


Photographs of Wystan

One of the world's
greatest poets
in a pose, similar
to an Anne Gedde's baby
 
Balancing beetle antennae
his head at an angle
a satin suit padded to
emulate the chest
of ...

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Tough time – the economic crisis for a short period
Sometimes for the five members there’ll be a few bread.

Mother would declare she'd already her share of bread
“I was soo……. hungry, I had mine” she would...

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Tough time – the economic crisis for a short period
Sometimes for the five members there’ll be few bread.

Mother would declare she'd already her share of bread
“I was soo……. hungry, I had mine” she would add.

Dad,...

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US Verse, after Auden
by Michael R. Burch

"Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful." - W. H. Auden

Verse has small value in our Unisphere,
nor is it fit for windy revelation.
It cannot legislate...

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The shadows from his younger days shake his resolve, 
and make a mockery of time 'til time be lost 
to moments of bewilderment, ne'er to evolve, 
they bounce and bluster errantly, much to his cost....

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