Long Beheaded Poems

No Mark
by Michael R. Burch

A wave implodes, 
impaled upon
impassive rocks...

this evening
the thunder of the sea
is a wild music filling my ear...

you are leaving
and the ungrieving
winds demur...

telling me
that nothing returns
as it was before...

here where you have...

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Sonnets LII-LX

The Endeavors of Lips
by Michael R. Burch

How sweet the endeavors of lips: to speak
of the heights of those pleasures which left us weak
in love’s strangely lit beds, where the cold springs creak:
for there is...

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Sonnets XXV-XXXII

Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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A Vain Word
by Michael R. Burch

Oleanders at dawn preen extravagant whorls
as I read in leaves’ Sanskrit brief moments remaining
till sunset implodes, till the moon strands grey pearls
under moss-stubbled oaks, full of whispers, complaining
to the darkening...

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Sonnets X-XVI


Archaischer Torso Apollos (“Archaic Torso of Apollo”)
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within,...

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CRISIS SESSION FBI HUMAN RESOURCE DIVISION NON-REDACTED
FBI: HELLO WHAT IS YOUR EMERGENCY

AGENT BROWN: HELLO THIS IS AGANT BROWN AND THAT DARK PLACE IS RETURNING AGAIN I AM IN CRISIS AGAIN 

FBI: OKAY WE ARE HERE...

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New Year Poetry

Auld Lange Syne
by Robert Burns
translation by Michael R. Burch 

Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
And days for which we pine?

For times we shared, my darling,
Days passed,...

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One day not long past our economy faltered
And wouldn’t improve if our course were unaltered.

'Cause we buy stuff at Wal-Mart (where things are dirt cheap)
'Cause they buy from China (treats workers like sheep

(So farmers left...

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There is a world of difference
between schism and jism,
but they both end up the same.

Just as patriarchal Roman Catholicism
overpowers living and breathing Christianity,
so too does Capitalism
overpower cooperative capital co-investment,
so too does autocratic rationalism
overpower syncretic enculturing...

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Archaischer Torso Apollos ("Archaic Torso of Apollo")
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a...

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You can feel it spinning
                              ...

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I feel rather empty…
Flushed, confused, free me?
I’m feeling kinda dirty
To be honest, I’m fake happy

Wearing a smile like the rest of us
But, there’s a million rivers and fires between us
So, don’t throw me under the...

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What if I ,
Saw a waist-coated white rabbit,
Pass and disappear down a hole
Would I think I was going quite mad
Or would I want to follow him
As he exclaimed I’m late!  I’m late!
For a very...

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Pasha Acremodios grew greedy,
discontented with the domain he dominated,
so he turned covetous eyes toward Farabia,
sending his soldiers to seize this ripened plum

Spoiling for a fight and fighting for spoils,
his army swept across Farabia
like a bloody...

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I have seen the fireflies two nights in succession
wandering restlessly in the dark
hundreds of them blinking evocative lights
symbolizes the souls of warriors whose blood 
have drenched  the desiccated earth for a cause 
they believe...

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9/11... In MEMORIAM.

The thousands of valuable people in an instant we lost!
Twas a most painful, national cost.
Our country won't be that loved again,
It's turned into...

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The Fallen and the Angel

The droplets from the sky
Landed on her wounded shin
That pierced through her shivering body
Like a needle intruding her skin
The scarlet eyes of hers
Peeked through her saggy blindfold
All people turned into a...

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You were primarily a spiritualist, 
But circumstances made you a noble warrior:
Your father, Guru Teg Bahadur,  
was treacherously beheaded.
You had to contend invaders from the Western frontier
And ward off repeated imperialist incursions from the...

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Semi - collage dreams suddenly collapsed, 
While the chill of September's dawn crept into my veins, 
And the scent of the wind outside smelled with horror, 
Gunshots from ak-47 disturbed the airs' silence instead
Of the...

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Medusa had been a ravishingly beautiful maiden but her mirror was broken

Too many snakes in her head as she looked into the reflection of her prism

Condensed she gazed at the prison of shards cracks and...

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this world is threaten to be smitten
by the bastard child of Great Britain
witness the ultimate hypocrite 
banning other countries nuclear armorment
while simultaneously developing it

Bush is so queer
kim jong like don't come here
and he knows that...

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“Patients, carefully wash your hands and mouth
As the spirits are offended by our smells
And get yourself clean of the defilements”
Thus Matho announced the arrival of the **Dakini
To the séance of the Stok Monastery.
Then Dakini donned...

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II.
It was brutal chance he’d found Paul’s ranch house,
and killed the two cowboys who had stayed behind,
he and his two men took turns with Ella,
left a note saying they’d ‘enjoyed his new bride.’

Ella was alive,...

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When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the alter the souls of those 
who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony that 
they had maintained. Than they called...

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