Long Cataract Poems

“Éagmais croí a dhíscaoileadh ar gach eagla.
Faoi dhíon taobh istigh de na blianta seo.
Fanacht i bhfianaise, a dhíscaoileadh ar gach eagla.
Ós rud é go ndearnadh tú a chaitheamh.
Briseadh an tost seo”



"An Bee Cailleach"


She lives to...

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Yosa Buson haiku translations

On the temple’s great bronze gong
a butterfly
snoozes.
?Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hard to describe:
this light sensation of being pinched
by a butterfly!
?Yosa Buson, loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Not to worry...

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“Now behind the eyes and secrets of the dreamers in the streets rocked to sleep by the sea, see the titbits and topsyturvies, bobs and buttontops, bags and bones, ash and rind and dandruff and...

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I.
You can always tell by the eyes
When they’re starting to go
You’ll fall for a few of their lies
Before you begin to know
And you will just defy it
(But they know you will never go)

They’ll glide through...

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                         The idea is to...


      ...

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                               parallel lives

  ...

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When young, in playing out one day
a swinging stick got in my way,
it crushed my eye into my head
another inch and I’d be dead.

Back in 1952
there wasn’t much that they could do,
so when eye surgery...

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You're a waste of a man
The last choice for a sane person
The weirdest weirdo amidst weirdos
You just don't fit in —
Like a pole climbing strap
Trying to be forced into a blue Jeans
What an abuse of...

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she left me defenseless again
for reasons that cannot be spoken
but that can be further diagrammed
worthy of forensic dissection
deep into the cauliflower folds
branching like rivers of lightning
all at once one at a time
lighting up the display...

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You’ve reached a certain age when life has set you free
You can cock a hoop at protocol; do things that aren't PC
You can swim in just your underpants; be a gentleman or lout
Speak your mind...

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Of a distant land I ponder.
Of a country torn asunder.
Of Zimbabwe ne'er forgotten -
Where the life has turned so rotten.
Ah it tugs my heartstrings so -
This much loved land so full of woe.

In my dreams...

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Dear God,

I wish to complain,
for the pain I have had in your name,
as the Master of all
it is really your call
to ensure that our life’s not in vain.

We believe you say “don’t live in sin”
but...

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She is shadowed by fuzzy cobwebs of a morning without coffee,
while dust motes mingle with the mold of time.
Gazing out to the yard, through dingy glass, and fog, 
into a dismal January, she hopes to...

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" Imagine a place where there is beauty, bliss and plentifulness for all. It is nothing short of utopia. Though we are far from realizing it, isn't it thrilling to imagine a version of the...

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The dawn broke glittering and chirping,
The newspaper boy wheeled into,
The newsletter read the lines,
Kidnaps, violence, riots, rapes, theft, murder, bombs dropped onto civilians
invasion, gang wars, homicide, scandals, scams, anarchy, chaos……!!!!

News scroll portrayed inert words and...

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His granite form against blue skies
Rippling on the bulging eye, wild waves
Of muscles the netting cloud defies
Reason in concrete, his pride raves
In self glory of athleticism, what a gem
Hard and shadowed without a diadem.

I know...

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Tears of sorrow flow as rivers from my eyes
while I put my pens and pencils away
to never to grace a page again
small cardboard box their final place of rest.

Why such sadness, I know not
maybe it...

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Dominica
Gawaine Caldwater Ross

We share melons and papayas
beneath a sun benevolent.
A salty breeze, the river is cool,
and the passion flower blossoms
are fragile but rich. We stroke
their fragrance and sip intoxication -
we slip a little further and
I...

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The golden silence melts away, and joy un-named
From the phantom pipes exults me
For no silence can so rhapsodized and doubts tamed
That man deserves better glory.
And what if sin could, levelling us, permit this to remain
Tell...

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I am as soft as butter
I melt in your heat
Let me not slip through 
------

How can I give you my song?
My voice is choked
My musical instrument shy
--------
The brook passes frolicsome 
The forest is heavy
With bird-songs
-----------
You...

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"Has solitude ever led your steps down a forest path . . . "
                     ...

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So Much and Yes More

As she let slip her gown to reveal a shoulder so white
Her head she turned round with lips full, luscious and teeth oh so white 
His lips trembled as they touched...

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CELEBRATED  HEADACHE.
This  Ota  farmer  recognized  as  
Africans  kobo
Copper  coin  with  a  fluctuating  photo,
You  load  tomorrow’s  volt  into  this
Over...

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Where did the quality of 
life go?
We were on bicycles,
jumping rope, eating popsicles.
Who cared about dirt?

We threw our body into
pools with nary a care.
The elderly with canes, just
harrumphed and gave us
watery, cataract stares.

With nary a...

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On the precipice it stands,
loose-limbed with a sinewy grace,
body taut with an implied swagger,
face, grinning, a sun-dappled gold. 
Unclouded by the cataract of cynicism, 
its eyes survey a horizon heat-hazed with 
a thousand promises. 

As...

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