Long Cartwheels Poems

With my Uyghur poetry translations I am trying to build awareness of the plight of Uyghur poets who are being sent to Chinese "reeducation" concentration camps.

Elegy
by Perhat Tursun
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Asylum seekers, will...

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We are the days that we’ve become. 
moments dripping gifted from
the lounging clocks in rolling melted sightings, 
given by the gifted madness of a soulmate’s fightings. 

Our lives wrapped up in phrases coined
in books like,...

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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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Anticipation,
faces sparkling,
wrinkles smiling,
memories at the ready.

Friends inter-mingling, while great grandchildren run through the gathering crowd.
Sun streaking through branches, warming joints, and turned up faces seeking the rare appearance of the coastal sun.

The growing color of...

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S t r e n g t h ~
a somersaulting sigil
you wear in stillness,
when the gold of ascending dawn
kisses the skin of sleeping sand,
when the skylark softly
serenades serenity for the unseen,
while I trace the running...

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            Beaming brilliant beautiful bright stars.
            These diamonds, twinkling, sparkling. 
  ...

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Making up dance routines to the top twenty,                           ...

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It is night yet in the West
   and the planes land between listlessly burning tarmac lamps
   stealthy fingers scurrying through diadems of neons  halogens and amber
    ...

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You know we’re very poor, of that we have certainly, never denied.
Then the ‘Obama-I-don’t-Care’ gave us another whammy, Yes, indeed! Oh My!
Now, it’s Peanut butter we will have for supper, and even that we’ll spread...

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The first one

The first one to speak
The first one to want
to thrive
The first one to try and speak
and not to just survive
The first one to shatter denial
It feels like
Aware I’m squishing it inside
The first one...

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Wiz Away

I entered the empty funeral hall.
Am I not at the correct memorial gathering in visitation room H?
“Excuse me, sir, but is this the memorial for Mr. Wizby?
 There is not a posting besides the...

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Part Two

To have written is to leave but a mark
  nothing stands for the proud rhyming syllables
    more than his acquired business acumen
a Vaishya karmic hope

Now we stand aghast before this...

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Buttered Fields
 
It was early when she was tickled awake
as light eased under the eaves
to trickle through a sigh of curtains,
to whisper across the bedroom floor,
to nudgingly nestle beside her…..and beam!
 
Outside the sun had...

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Granules of recollection rub like salt 
Flailing in the fog of seven years ago
Deafened by incessant frog cries
Vines dangling began attaching to each other 
Drying river stagnated, slime slippery with algae 
Vigorous tree growth stooped...

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On a Sunday in the evening
The old barn becomes a hall
Social place where every weekend
The town folk go for a ball.
 
The inside is decorated  
Lights are lit, the banners sway
By the walls barrels...

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Is just Love an oasis in ‘desert of self’
Where my talents seem fossilized bones with no life?
I bless remnants of forebears (expired, long past prime)
That caress life, the breeze that cools brow, whose moist breath,
Does...

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On a Sunday in the evening
The old barn becomes a hall
Social place where every weekend
The town folk go for a ball.

The inside is decorated  
Lights are lit, the banners sway
By the walls barrels and...

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Nature brings us such astonishing beauty,
and one of the most lovely sights is Flamingos.
Whether they are in a huge group or two by two,
or a pink mother and baby with feathers new;
light gray feathers than...

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      Clover superlative lovers, sprung via same stem
      Umbrella immunity protects sprites supple
      Filter purity lacy leaf shade kindly dapples...

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Inside twinkling eyes of nights bloom
          Garden flowers whisper
      Peeking through tree branches, heads nod
      ...

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To understand a tree
how it lives in the summer
fails in fall
dies in the winter
reborn in spring

An endless phoenix cycle
around and around
as seasons come and seasons go
summer the height of their year

This summer will last,
the five-year-old...

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[TIME PAST 
 
Has time past when my hair has turned grey
When my pastel blue eyes have dimed. 
Has time past when those legs that ran up mountains,
now will only take a step or two.
Has...

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An expansive view of tumbling sand and lasting memories
make seagulls swoop in broad paintbrush strokes
over brothers bonded by baseball and a broken home.

Within a sandcastle, two boys taste salt on their tongues,
a savory blend of...

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You were always happy, always on the move
with a great zest for life and a heart full of love.

We loved you too and checked to see if you’d get mad
if we mimicked your habits, but...

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I brush back
Her wave of turquoise hair
She winces but doesn’t yet
Pull back
From the salt in her wounds
And the sand on her hips

From the laughing seagulls snatching
Last night’s scrap of words
Leftover
From the plates and lips
Of Sunny...

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