Long Boulder Poems

It’s heading for our planet at ten thousand miles an hour
To stop it all the experts say we haven’t got the power
All the nukes in all the world won’t constitute a plan
So someone said, ‘All...

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"You really wanna know? Cause I'll tell ya if you really wanna know. You'll be thinkin' I'm crazy before I'm done, but I'll tell ya... ifn' you really wanna know."

The day started like any other,...

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Those primeval skies, no man ever knew
Ignited, as one massive boulder burst through
Hollow inside, creatures not unlike mice
Strapped themselves in as they plunged into ice
Instantly boiled then instantly frozen
None were to question the planet they'd...

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Those primeval skies, no man ever knew
Ignited, as one massive boulder burst through
Hollow inside, creatures not unlike mice
Strapped themselves in as they plunged into ice
Instantly boiled then instantly frozen
None were to question the planet they'd...

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I stood at the top of our dirt driveway looking back at our two-story house. It's kind of a long house where, from our second-floor windows, you can see cars driving on the lane road...

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Such Tenderness
by Michael R. Burch

for the mothers of Gaza

There was, in your touch, such tenderness—as
only the dove on her mildest day has,
when she shelters downed fledglings beneath a warm wing
and coos to them softly, unable...

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[Continued from ‘Terror Bugs: Part 2 - A Freezer Mice Adventure’]
__________

London’s streets resembled an al fresco mausoleum 
They tracked a trail of body parts which led to a museum
A thousand Terror Bugs were massed, in...

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Climbing from the sands, velociraptors turn as one
Triceratops and stegosaurs arise to share the fun
And then they march en masse toward that briny maelstrom
And Adam Adams yells, “They’re heading back where they came from!”

Suddenly, so...

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Mahmoud Darwish English Translations of Arabic Poems



Palestine
by Mahmoud Darwish
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

This land gives us
all that makes life worthwhile:
April's blushing advances,
the aroma of bread warming at dawn,
a woman haranguing men,
the poetry of Aeschylus,
love's...

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Age defiant was this spruce and spirited citizen slinking blithely past the burgundy red doors of her enigmatic country dwelling.
As her olive skin neatly curved fingers 
slid over an intermittently scratched carbon black handrail she...

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“I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Erlenkönig passed from our world nearly fifty years ago.”
     “Fifty years?”  He could see the sadness envelope his face as the...

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His reverie ended as he was brought back to reality when he stepped into a patch of deep fresh snow and promptly fell face down in a hollow on the leeward side of a boulder....

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It’s been a long time coming
But I’m still on my game 
Writing is the only outlet 
That frees me of this pain
I Talk it how I walk it
And this Walk is insane
Some days are harder...

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I had a funny feeling today
that forced me to go to the park and pray
I was neither happy or sad but I felt a bit mad
I jumped into my truck and drove to the top...

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Scrounging for boogers wrought my damn nostrils nearly to bust 

Warning: The following material no worse than getting cooties. I remember them way back in grade school, whereat everyone ran away from me with worse...

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… as I child I heard these words by Immanuel Kant from my late Dad

over and over again …’you must act in a way that if everybody did it

your thinking and deeds could be the...

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I need some self-control…
I need some courage right this instant
Boldness and brilliance is on my tongue…
Bravery was always my middle name…
But, I need His Holy Spirit as a whole…
I need some patience and strength 
To...

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Frog in a Well

By: Joanne Jin 

1.
The Frog

I am the frog in a well:
I do not speak; I do not move–

I think of sundaes and sunshine and all the euphoria,
But I can’t help but carry...

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...and the Demon spoke,
its voice deep and mellow like smooth satiny chocolate,
"There is more, much more than good and evil,"
the words thunderously whispered.
The verdant emerald green of the forest quivering at the sound,
drawing in upon...

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We'd been travelling through the night and we needed a rest
The unmerciful sun was now rising above a red rocky crest
We headed for a large boulder that offered plenty of shade
Jenna was getting sick and...

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IS THIS...?             Poem 8/17/

Written for Jim Eslinger , 37-year anniversary

What are these specks we must trudge over, 
Transplanting ourselves from one wilderness to
Another?...

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Every morning
When I glance into the mirror
I look deep inside
Deeper than my subtly-thinning hair
Deeper than my raven beard
Deeper than my mocha complexion
Laden with marks
Of life's wear and tear 
And high cheek bones
I see multitudes
From across...

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Do you know what it is like to be an untouchable?
To be so filthy and disgusting
That people shrink away from you
Do you know how it corrodes your soul
To see how the stench that follows your...

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Am I a lie?
In the silent depths of my thoughts, I wonder if I am just a fabrication,
Some days I want to disappear, lost in the abyss of a meaningless existence,
Each day a masquerade, a...

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Scrounging for boogers wrought my damn nostrils nearly to bust 

My humblest apology if the following account
doth gross thee out forlorn childhood of mine 
found further ostracization of me tantamount
being shipped off to  a...

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