Long Cleaves 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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Perhat Tursun

Perhat Tursun (1969-) is one of the foremost living Uyghur language poets, if he is still alive. Born and raised in Atush, a city in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, Tursun began writing poetry...

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He wondered with horror how so many memories, so many forms to be branded on his skin and engrave there.

Then the wet rattle of a twisted throat, and he beats his last breath to his...

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Over yonder pastoral realms, with heaving mounds of green
Birds of variegated colors shine, where.streamlets gleam with opal sheen.
In circles round, fleetfooted Zephyr sweeps the laurelled ground
With footfalls that loom, a sweet scented voluptuous sound
Which gently strike...

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Three wholesome troubling years before, a thousand cursed days back
    I lay, most stiff within my bed, my house of death did reek
And all my nightmares, all my slumbers, they were deep...

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   "I have seen and heard the vibrancy of dreams, 
and the way 
of the crossings-through the ills 
and through the barriered things."

A fleeting spark that perceives, 
I, have seen...

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Everything around is quiet, not a sound could be heard, except for the engine running up and down the street and the ticking clock erupting my heart beat.

I hear the sound of music, a yonder...

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Sappho, fragment 155
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

A short transparent frock?
It's just my luck
your lips were made to mock!

NOTE: This is a translation/interpretation of an epigram by the legendary Sappho of Lesbos. Pollux wrote: "Sappho...

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Under millions of stars...................eyes deeply fixed to the golden moon..............when dew on the grass is shinning like pieces of glasses...............on the bus to town................like a monkey on a tree,
With my favorite blue pen................sometimes draft in...

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With the end of days upon them
Nears the time of final battle
In the halls of high Valhalla
Asgard senses its death rattle

In the forest crows the rooster 
In the sky the sun does darken
In the cave...

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God created man in His Image
Man is to have dominion 
Over all the animals 
And land

God Blessed Man
With Woman
Taking in fashioning a woman
From out of the side of man
From Out of man’s Rib

God stated Man...

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Impeccant,
 of non-textual matters
 one’s covered flesh,
 and hidden embrasure’
 as diffusate primer
 slips life’s veil, and
 in agitated pontlevis,
 cleaves the universe’ reason…
 “Egads! What sorcery is this?”
 Holy heart failure, Batman!
 “Beavis and...

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The day would pass in blissful brightness, with our brains on auto-pilot. The stories we'd tell and the memories we'd conjure up from years past, one couldn't help but think we were all running on...

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November 19 Relationship to God Bible Meditations Based on Galatians 4-6

Key Verse – Galatians 4:6 And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
	
LORD...

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According to the will of fate 
I have come... 
I emerge from the flood 
A living soul. 
My memory is torn by the night. 
The night is enshrouded with darkness. 
I wander around the world...

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I am blessed by God 
Justice and mercy 
are found in the grace of the Lord 
I am blessed by His Holy Spirit. 
          Thus, my...

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Ecstasy:
*an overpowering emotion or exaltation; a state of sudden, intense feeling.

* slang  3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine; MDMA: a powerful drug that acts as a stimulant and can produce hallucinations

Some time after midnight, a change in the noise
The...

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A seething summer morning in the oil boom trailer park
Oral Roberts on the radio with the gospel told by Mark
The reek of raw petroleum is everywhere around
We little oil trash urchins play marbles on the...

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                                  ...

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In the distance, [He] centers on [Her] shadow,
Resting in the emptiness by the desolate window.
Moth, masticated curtains imprison the light, 
By casing the lampshade and confining the bright.

Faintly in view sits the intense apparition of...

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May 20, 2022 Scripture Meditations Based on Psalms 85-89

Key Verse – Psalm 85:6 Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? 

MY GOD, THANK YOU FOR REVIVING ME AGAIN

Thank You...

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My heart praises the Almighty God
basking in His wondrous love and compassion
assured with His trustworthy promise:
“… I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”*

With gratefulness to the omnipotent Lord
my soul cleaves to Him and to...

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January 19 Scripture Meditations Based on Exodus 19-24

Key Verse – Exodus 19:4 Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto myself.

MY GOD,...

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I’ve an anger which cannot be hidden!
A burning passion that comes unbidden!
My Soul desolated with grievous rage,
reacts with furious justified outrage!

Occasioned by the offences of ignorance,
bigotry, discrimination and intolerance!
Though evil are the ravages of vandalism,
they...

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Psalm 21-I  For this day . GOOD FRIDAY

A Prophecy of the Passion of our Lord

My God my God why hast thou forsaken me? Thou art far from my prayers.
From the words of my cry.

3)...

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