Long Better known(p) Poems

See
by Michael R. Burch

See how her hair has thinned: it doesn’t seem
like hair at all, but like the airy moult
of emus who outraced the wind and left
soft plumage in their wake. See how her eyes
are...

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Medieval Poems IV



IN LIBRARIOS
by Thomas Campion
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Booksellers laud authors for novel editions
as pimps praise their whores for exotic positions.



Brut (circa 1100 AD, written by Layamon, an excerpt)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R....

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Native American Translations

Cherokee Travelers' Blessing I
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

I will extract the thorns from your feet.
For yet a little while, we will walk life's sunlit paths together.
I will love you like my own...

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Juvenilia: Early Poems XI

Myth
by Michael R. Burch

after the sprung rhythm of Dylan Thomas

Here the recalcitrant wind
sighs with grievance and remorse
over fields of wayward gorse
and thistle-throttled lanes.

And she is the myth of the scythed wheat
hewn and...

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Salat Days
by Michael R. Burch 

(dedicated to my grandfather, Paul Ray Burch Sr.)

I remember how my grandfather used to pick poke salat ...
though first, usually, he’d stretch back in the front porch swing,
dangling his long...

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Rejection
a roundel by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it's useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has...

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Medieval Poem V

A Proverb from Winfred's Time
anonymous Old English poem, circa 757-786
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The procrastinator puts off purpose,
never initiates anything marvelous,
never succeeds, and dies alone.

2.
The late-deed-doer delays glory-striving,
never indulges daring dreams,
never succeeds,...

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Like Hannibal we crossed the pass and crossed 
   the Alps (okay, the Brynderwyn Hills) 
and a bridge too far on north-west passage.
   From out of the Valley of Mizpah 
to...

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Deor's Lament

(Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem circa the 10th century AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Weland endured the agony of exile:
an indomitable smith wracked by grief.
He suffered countless sorrows;
indeed, such sorrows were his bosom companions
in that frozen...

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UNCLE ELDON 


Now that I am old,  I see more clearly through my mind's eye, than I did in my youth, all those special people who played such a wonderful part in my life....

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I (a youthsome, wholesome, jokesome, handsome,...
gamesome, chucklesome, bothersome,
and awesome modest fellow)...
does not deliberately court immortalization,
and wonders what criteria confer elevation,
exaltation, glorification, hero worship,
idolization, veneration, or worship.

I go about a daily humdrum routine
me, a twenty first...

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Patience
by Rabindranath Tagore
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

If you refuse to speak, I will fill my heart with your silence and endure it.
I will remain still and wait like the night through its starry vigil
with...

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Despite the day-to-day signs of man’s bitter degradation, there were many in the South who somehow still failed to see the endless pain of segregation. From the viewpoint of those who never lived there as...

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Bradlee Joe is mine, he's always been mine,
The younger brother of David Authur Rasmussen Jr.,
Those gorgeous brown eyes staring at me, natural hair color,
That's brown; just like his brothers, but he dyed it blonde.
That gorgeous...

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The outlook wasn’t brilliant for the Mudville nine that day;
The score stood four to two, with but an inning left to play.
And when Cooney fell at first, and Barrows met the same,
A hush of sorrow...

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They come from the same bloodline whether or not we like or appreciate them. Chances are that they are a lot like us whether or not we choose to admit it. Aunts, uncles, and cousins,...

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Unquotable quotes: The How of Democratic Kill – XXXIX, Part One

Born in 1868, Alexei Maximovich PESHKOV, better known as MAXIM GORKY and hailed as the chief proponent of Soviet literature, the veritable champion of the...

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There's a defender among us, a friend who never surrenders or concedes
No thief is he, who offers encouragement to people with his kind deeds

A rapscallion, devoted to negativity, brings gloom to Poetry Soup Forest,
a site...

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W. S. Rendra translations

Willibrordus Surendra Broto Rendra (1935-2009), better known as W. S. Rendra or simply Rendra, was an Indonesian dramatist and poet. He said, “I learned meditation and the disciplines of the traditional Javanese...

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There's an archer dressed in Lincoln green, a friend to those in need.
No thief is he who offers encouragement to people with kind deeds.

A jealous sheriff, dressed in black, wants to rule Ole Nottingham,
a township...

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Dream Song of the Thunders
Chippewa saying
translation by Michael R. Burch

Sometimes I bemoan my “plight”
when all the while
the wind bears me across the immense sky.


What is life?
The flash of a firefly.
The breath of the winter buffalo.
The...

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Crazy Horse's Naming Vision
by Michael R. Burch

Earthbound,
and yet I now fly
through these clouds that are aimlessly drifting...
so high
that no sound
echoing by
below where the mountains are lifting
the sky
can be heard.

Like a bird,
but not meek,
like a hawk...

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President Joe Biden, apparently is growing weary, of all of the negative criticism. That he has been receiving from people.  Could it be true that anyone who criticisms him could be in jeopardy of...

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According to the You Tube internet's program, The Lion of Judah, we "need to tell the devil that he is a liar." For it is the devil whose evil spirit is behind our "spirit of...

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It's the High Cost of Living better known as the High Cost of Inflation! It is not just the rising cost of gasoline! It is the high cost of meat, groceries and other items! Including...

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