Long Chests Poems

Here We Shall Remain
by Tawfiq Zayyad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like twenty impossibilities
in Lydda, Ramla and Galilee ...
here we shall remain.

Like brick walls braced against your chests;
lodged in your throats
like shards of glass
or prickly cactus...

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Turkish Poetry Translations II

Çanakkale Sehitlerine
"For the Çanakkale Martyrs"
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Was there ever anything like the Bosphorus war??
The earth’s mightiest armies pressing Marmara,
Forcing entry between her mountain passes
To a...

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A dream of a Rainbow coloured family

In the ocean there is a raging storm 
And a lot of boats 
With rudders that are shattered,
Compasses lost, sails that are torn.
And dreams that are faded or tattered
With...

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New England's late May sun was long up,
and yet her laundry began to unfold
and clip onto the droopy clothesline,
while yet to warm into 8 AM.

She wore a light spring jacket
and need not think long
about why...

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"The Emasculation of Man"
 


The world goes by loudly
emasculated man 
sees nothing 
for what it’s worth
ignorant and 
pumelling chests
gorilla armies 
neanderthals
small brained 
with closed fists 
power hungry 
greed-fuelled 
knowing all 
blind to the 
supernatural
natural course...

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Mehmet Akif Ersoy: Modern English Translations of Turkish Poems

Mehmet Âkif Ersoy (1873-1936) was a Turkish poet, author, writer, academic, member of parliament, and the composer of the Turkish National Anthem.



Snapshot
by Mehmet Akif Ersoy
loose English translation/interpretation...

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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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When we encounter problems
in daily relationships,
as all species and individuals do,
from healthy time to wealthy RightBrain systemic rhyme,
practicing nutritional v toxic awareness
facilitates RealTime health preparedness
for what is not not causing power-stuckness challenges
to otherwise healthy nests...

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LOVE Of Our Life

Life’s journey swim links 2 defined moments - birth & death.
To survive its stretch we swim different strokes,
Delivered inner strength combats heavy tides & puncture pokes,
Hidden forces compatibly energize different folks,
Fortifying for...

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Richard Mcgeehan Poem

Poetic license I employ
to match inventive
wisdom and witticism
regarding (brother in law of mine 
husband of eldest sister of same)
interspersing, initiating, incorporating
fabrication whenever possible,
and only the subject himself
can discern fact from fiction
and get a...

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By Stanley Collymore

Never speak ill of the dead we’re constantly and solemnly
exhorted regardless of who they are or the life that
they freely chose to live, as they’re no longer
around, is the lame and unconvincing excuse
that’s...

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We, the generation of '50,
Time-travelers with stardust in our hair, with memories planted in pockets,
Rooted in decades embraced by change, souls adorned with the dawn of the post-war world.
We spun on the carousel of the...

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Their mere weapon was their forbidden courage, hands barren with  no armaments, no ammunitions, marching towards the proud valley of death, dedication born from their sempiternal dreams of a free land. 

Their bare weapon...

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As dusk settled to star-filled night, they finally came.
Amongst the burning huts, he knelt before the two Gods,
their bright white skin flickering red anger within the light of the fire.
One stood with turtle shell gleaming...

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Father left when I was eleven. It was at this time
That I began regular jaunts to grandma's house.
Mom worked; and, my older sister was pure slime.
Grandma was wonderful, but, as silent as a mouse.

It was...

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Have you seen a Rockwell 1950's Lemonade Wars?
Two girls, both white of course,
dressed for YoungRepublican success
scowling at each other on a pristine deserted street
of the tree-lined rich suburban variety,
arms folded across their angry 
relentless middle-class...

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In the past, where I seldom visit
There is a soul I’d like to remember
He was a preacher who traveled the mountains
The ridges of North Carolina and Tennessee
Going back and forth to alters across the hills
Reaching...

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somber thoughts in disarray
broken moments of a jaded day
under siege of firing brigades
the bed you lay in is the bed you made

tattered talons from battles fought
a mind full of colorful forgetmenots 
fragmented pieces of what...

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I am not a sanctuary
do not come to me for sanctuary, 
I am a supernova,  the Saturn V rocket
prepared to penetrate the highest blue sky
with a 6.5 million pound payload ride,
my rocket shell steams...

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William Branton has just run into camp as if the earth is falling away from his heels,
he has spotted a large cluster of Indians to the south moving towards us on horseback, 
an estimated 100...

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When I was a youth the earth was our friend, as it was our means of escape.  We would run and chase each other across great distances, far away from the confines of home...

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"Dissolution"



I go to sleep a lot now, 
to escape reality. 
It is as if I am no longer here, 
but there in the other worlds. 
Some dreams are so real. 
Once was a life
where as...

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Musings at Giza
by Michael R. Burch

In deepening pools of shadows lies
the Sphinx, and men still fear his eyes.
Though centuries have passed, he waits.
Egyptians gather at the gates.

Great pyramids, the looted tombs
—how still and desolate their...

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The Evening Soup, Translation of Paul Verlaine’s La soupe du soir

						To J.-K. Huysmans

(Verlaine here paints a stark tableau of working-class or peasant life shorn of any symbolic or imaginary references. Even if I see no...

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The sun is melting at a hundred and five degrees and the wind is swirling in the trees, the petals are opening wide in the skies and the motorcycles are rolling by. Hundreds of them...

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