Long Canterbury Poems

Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain...

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The Song of Amergin: Modern English Translations

The Song of Amergin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I am the sea breeze
I am the ocean wave
I am the surf's thunder
I am the stag of the seven tines
I am...

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Queen Elizabeth Alexandra Mary ll
Her seemingly eternal monarch--God has now beckoned
Balmoral Castle, reigned over the United Kingdom
"God Save The Queen" The British national anthem
21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022

“We are all visitors to this...

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Unquotable quotes: Writers – XXXVIII

     for Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra and Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoieski  
     who let not even hope sustain them and who used their...

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This is not for any contest especially since I like better versions than the one sung by Glenn Hughes which is not much to my liking.  Furthermore, this is more in the region of...

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They stand on territorial waters waiting for the morning to raise; hearts united with the sun and the rain beckoning you to come. You stand between the pinnacles of time waiting for the sun to...

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The day had dawned with the sunrays pouring through my window,
I saw myself scratching my head,
Since the number of gripping ideas in my brain amounted to zero.

I had been asked to compose something-- which will...

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The Bucket List

Imagine if you will, a scene unlike any other,
Sipping Espresso daybreak, foothills of snow that smother.
Pavement Café in Zermatt, first patron of the morn’
Eyes glazed in wonder, the magnificence of Matterhorn.

Imagine if you...

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EULOGY TO MRS (Ph.D) ALIHAJA, AMINAT OLABOOPO                            ...

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85
 Feedback comes to those who apply and post and expect to receive the same 
when you place a silver dollar in your mouth you scratch it with your teeth to see if 
it is...

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If ever I had to have a country victim of pedophily : LXXXVI

[Note: 216,000 cases of pedophily, perpetrated by the clergy, have been recorded by the Catholic Church in France since 1950.]

If ever I had to...

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 Warning, this poem is dark. It is inspired by the  Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Gather around and hear of the strange day,
When three total strangers met on that plane.
Three unlikely females eager to...

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- Readers, I hope you forgive me.
I’m retracting some words I once said:
I'd planned to write just five of these tales
But I've added a sixth tale instead..


Night

The preacher was searching for Duchess
Also known as 'The...

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I am of Maroon extraction, dear
My grandmother's grandfather fought
Without surrender or tanant of fear
And two times with Boukman caught
And twice unlike him escaped
To die in a rocky cliff, proudly brave
While the freed slave escaped
He held...

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A pair of blue wings is hovering
against the inky black covering
within ‘Little Fox’ constellation
of Vulpecula designation,

portrayed with stipple sidereal
in Hubble image ethereal,
‘Hen two dash four three seven’ labeled.
A hen with fox is Aesop fabled,

except it...

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I don't know about Archbishop Justin Timberlake, 
He’s jazzing up the church, 
Making Jesus controversial, 
Leaving life in the lurch. 

It’s fine to have excitement, 
About any religious thing or assumption, 
But when you poke...

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Brexit Is Icumenn In, May's gone cuckoo!

No shame is poverty, if the heart by gay !
As Chaucer's Wife of Bath was wont to say;
Is this the tale that's told by May?
For Theresa's plan is surely on...

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Once was wretched
Was charged with stealing a pie
And the penalty under the law says that Richard must die
But the maid who made the allegation had told a lie
She couldn’t recognize the thief when he ran...

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"Pluto’s Dark Abode" 

they say you can feel her 
walking through you 
it only happens when 
the frost and mist is about 
where hidden wild things 
watch but make 
themselves heard
in the half light 
they...

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That bridge hanging precariously
  Across the threatening gulf
Was the only escape to mortality
                   For we were...

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Surrounded by the Bay of Conception
Bell Island anchored for miles perception
Deep deep under the mine that was drudged
Remnants of rail blind horses that tugged 

Not the mainland but off Canada's shore
The iron ore mines that...

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As Sol arises, greets the morn
the soon test taker wails,
"I'm doomed! If I had only read
The Canterbury Tales!

Or more of Samuel Collerige,
or Wordsworth, Yeats or Shelley,
More Medieval or Old English,
some Eliot or Browning!

Or how to...

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With the late commencement of cerebral dawn
When by chance I strolled in the literary garden 
A veritable store-house of priceless gems strewn
Threw up joys, exclusive; never to be forgotten.

There one finds precious jewels of craftsmanship
By...

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Other children wanted to see 
Kingston with its bright lights and teeming markets
The contentious noise of cars, and loud rackets
Of tongues tattlering their glee
To watch the shrewd bargains at the finger tips
The clever hands, and...

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Richard Prichard
Once was wretched
But now owns a golden land
Where diamonds and pearls rock his feet
Like giant balls of sand
He remembered the time he was poor
And how people treated him so
How he waved to the miller’s...

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