Long Austere Poems

As winter hazes of January spraying
While I was meditating on how
To write this riveting poem which
Seemed to be for someone who
I never cast in my sight.
Despite her name is not an odd in me
But I...

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Currents
by Michael R. Burch

How can I write and not be true
to the rhythm that wells within?
How can the ocean not be blue,
not buck with the clapboard slap of tide,
the clockwork shock of wave on rock,
the...

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The State of the Art (I)
by Michael R. Burch

Has rhyme lost all its reason
and rhythm, renascence?
Are sonnets out of season
and poems but poor pretense?

Are poets lacking fire,
their words too trite and forced?
What happened to desire?
Has...

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Poems about Poets I


The Wonder Boys
by Michael R. Burch

for Leslie Mellichamp

The stars were always there, too-bright cliches:
scintillant truths the jaded world outgrew
as baffled poets winged keyed kites—amazed,
in dream of shocks that suddenly came true ...

but...

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These are poems about starlight and moonlight, moons and stars, dreams and visions, illuminations and intimations …



Will There Be Starlight
by Michael R. Burch 

Will there be starlight
tonight
while she gathers
damask
and lilac
and sweet-scented heathers?

And will she find...

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Continued from FREEZER MICE

The cat had travelled straight from hell, a hell beyond the stars
The cat that theories claim once levied genocide on Mars
She now seeks vengeance on descendants of the primal shrew
Whoever knew that...

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He awoke to the sound of lightly crunching ice.  As he opened his eyes the boy stood looking at him, then with one fluid motion he stepped forward and stretched out his hand, 
...

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Understanding Nature

Part 1: What (I Think) God Wants You to Know!

Some people don’t understand Nature,
Feel death and pain prove there’s no God
Or if there is He is a monster,
His empathy for us a fraud.

They say...

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If you spill your secrets to the breeze,
Don't blame the wind for laying them to light.
Once said, words are disclosed, even to trees.
And claim peace in the leaves that rustle and fight.
Whispered tales of a...

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His walk into town would prove fateful that day,
As his mind wandered idly while finding his way.
His footsteps were brisk like fall chill in the air,
Past Wellington Gate, south of Denby town square.

He paused for...

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In backyards of my history
lies a tidal river
of ebb and flow revolutions.

These revolutions are normally no-news evolutions
back up toward headwaters of crisis and opportunity,
diastatic and polyphonic purest capital boundary roots
for future's river flow investment
out-flowing down
from...

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for Ronald Hindmarsh-Midwood 
                               ...

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Translation of Marcel Moreau's " A Paris " by T. Wignesan

IN PARIS

Paris bores me no end without you
My heart weighted down with melancholia
The spleen given over to asthenia
Empties its own sense of loss on to...

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Candy floss, seaside rock, smoothies, and flags sporting
Union Jacks
Replace the old traditions of striped deckchairs 
And Kiss-Me-Quick hats.
Chipwicks for our salt and vinegar fries
And their pole-and-line freshly caught local Cod;
The Vintners Parrot: For thick sizzling...

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Gazing down along the zealously
Monitored borders of well clipped
Evergreen Privet hedges.
Standing watchful guard over 
Divisions
Re-enforced by concrete posts and
Darkly stained, wooden, wavy-lap 
Fences;
Age-old neighbourly disputes, petty
Grudges and childish jealousies -
Ably demonstrated by various
Patchworks of shabbily...

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Moksha Karak 

So what is the individual result of Bavgt Venus. 
Is it fruit of thought from the sun?
Ascendant Ketu is the Vedic text that will provide the different outcomes.
As the positions of the planets...

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Realizing a fresh life growing inside, 
What thoughts coursed through your mind, 
I still wonder, oh dear my mom. 
Did you gleefully welcome the news?
Or respond to it with a violent shock?

So sure, right away...

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Collective Tapestry II
Words can uplift they also can bring down. With words we can soon discover a reason for being like the changing of the seasons. Out of every bit of circumstance we can learn...

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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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Oh dear, my heart was beating fast
It couldn't have been better
Halloween night was here
At last, the neighborhood would be so austere

I was dressed as a little princess
Always wanting to be the lovely lady
The one caring...

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His hand reached out to mine, open, 
Holding it, I smiled, our eyes danced with understanding, 
Form and blush outlined his expectations, 
But I could see that there may be fear inside. 

Mary restated their...

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Melted candles atop a resigned dresser
Wilted roses lying atop a white cloud
The flickering of fires and shadows mesh well with your
Batting eyelashes your heavy words and your breathing in rhythm with
the cadences of muted car...

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It is everywhere around me,
No one to share with but me.
It is too lonely to know.
But it is a great life to live.
Listening to the humming of the flies,
The squeak of the mouse.

Walking down the...

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Speak to me in iambic pentameter
and weave Shakespeare sonnets with Milton anecdotes.
Read me riddles and rhymes divulged 
over uneaten dinners and swing-sets with broken chains.
Allow me to lip-synch to your ballad of broken piano-fingers
and I...

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Nero the god! I had a dream. 
There I was at the foot of Mount Olympus.
 Mother was with me as usual. 
As we reached a cross-roads, Agrippina said: 
"Come Nero, here we turn left"...

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