Long Bounty Poems

Can you make any sense of
systemic racism?

No more common sense than
too much patriarchalism--
all leftbrain-rightwing dominant things
oppressing sacred Earth's
polycultural win/win systems
promoting resiliently wealthy
resonant synergetic health

Care given
as received
in fruitful wombs,
like apple cores in transition
from refuse
toward rebirth

Maybe an...

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Medieval Poems



Wulf and Eadwacer
(Old English circa 990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My people pursue him like crippled prey.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

Wulf's on one island; I'm on...

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Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then...

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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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Conditions were harsh out in Kansas,
For the children and Sarah and Paul.
Neighbors and friends packed up and were gone;
Headed west they could hear fortune's call.
Never sure year to year of the harvest,
So their talents were...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (I)

A number of my poems and translations have gone viral, according to Google, and some have been copied onto hundreds to thousands of web pages. That’s a lot...

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Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (c. 1460-1530)
loose translation/modernization/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

after William Dunbar

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that...

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The excitement mounted as we rummaged around in the attic looking through old steamer trunks for discarded clothes and props to make Halloween costumes. With an old suit and hat of Granddads, I became a...

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Highlight of Goofus and Gallant 
bred within the survival instinct 
of hungry hordes of prey, 
when Earth in the balance 
against an uncomfortable truth 
smug smurf like scavengers. 

     Punishment meted...

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These 2 different versions are separated by nine years

Part 1

MUST BE SPRING

Small speckles of wild grass 
Looking like tiny green drops 
That had fallen to the earth 
Were the very first sign 

Waving in the...

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as the PROPHETS of profits, WE lead and WE’re fair
while WE’re living the life of the poor BILLIONAIRE
– silver yachts, pearly castles, cash (plenty to spare) –
with the world on OUR backs... ah! the burdens...

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POEMS ABOUT EROS AND CUPID

These are translations of ancient Greek poems about Eros. Eros was the Greek counterpart of the Roman god Cupid. While today we tend to think of Cupid as an angelic cherub...

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I don't see you.
I've been searching my whole life,
But still, I don't see you.

When I was a wee lad
I looked for you ...
My mother's smile,
My father's toil,
My brother's refuge,
My sister's amity ...
I didn't see you.

Thanksgiving,...

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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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HEROES

Near somber guards, units of children heap 
dead leaves, naive to any else fallen.
Friend, you chuckle, but your posture speaks
of duty on this day of contradictions.

Firefighters bow heads in silent paean, 
while polished trucks stand...

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In the greatness of heavens realm there are many chapters of angels
Arch Angel Micheal the great warrior, Arch Angel Gabriel the great
messenger, Angels who tabulate, Angels who sing, Angels who watch
and for Earth the most...

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Poem One: Inspired by my reading of -Lady Labyrinth's---magnificent

poem ,  "Courting the Sublime Significance of Nothingness"

 (1.)  Poem One

Seeking The Boundaries Of Love's Depths And Her Hand

The air, its surging breath sings

into the...

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Note:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley,  Born 4 August 1792
Horsham, Sussex, England[1]
Died , 8 July 1822 (aged 29)
Gulf of La Spezia, Kingdom of Sardinia (now Italy)
Occupation	Poet, dramatist, essayist, novelist
Alma mater	University College, Oxford (no degree)
Literary movement	Romanticism
Spouse	Harriet Westbrook
(m. 1811;...

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  MAGDALENE : JEWEL OF JESUS 


She was the Chosen
a beckoned one
to ignite His speeches 
smooth it with her own
illustrious strength
‘Courage against Odds’
marked her inner Jewel 
 soft it lay cradled  
rhapsodic rubicon...

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Temporal incarnation of Aphrodite...

induces idyllic reverie
delight evoking similar surge,
when skirting, and eluding 
fidelity defining the marital law
on par with courting in flagrante delicto.

After reading about 
Greek goddess of love
fancy notion woke whereof
warmth suffused me
snug as...

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The Bedouins, bequeathed with the sacred beauty of paradise harsh,
trusted guardians of jealous gorges and gifted groves
lead me from the Wadi Musa to the humble ingress of Petra,
saying with thrill, the Jin of your Jihad...

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Boob jobs and bomb jobs

Sisters in arms those tits and those weapons of massive 
destruction sex and death go together in dynamics
thermodynamics psychodynamics fused on the playground 
of this life of this poem on which...

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(4.)
As Midnight Hours Call In More Darkened Hosts

Slow flows a river of doubt and regret
foaming its swirling eddies and sad pits
cavernous echoes one can not forget
nor withstand jagged cuts and hardest hits!

As sun retreats and...

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Gran glared at the general. ‘So tell me where we’re at
What’s a chicken got to do with me and Nitro Cat?’
‘That chicken,’ said the general, ‘has laid a special egg
It’s got a micro chip in...

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Let's start with one shared understanding:
life is a more dynamically relational synonym for "nature".

So when we ask,
What is the purpose of life?
we are also asking,
What is nature's purpose?
which sounds similar to asking if evolution is...

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