Long Clouding Poems

"The Strange Case of F.T."



They say the dead don’t talk
the stories I have calculated
to deliver a saving grace 
confessional shared amongst 
my equal peers, or so I deem 
you somewhat sometimes seem,
less than me, you...

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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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Come Down
by Michael R. Burch

for Harold Bloom

Come down, O, come down
from your high mountain tower.
How coldly the wind blows,
how late this chill hour ...

and I cannot wait
for a meteor shower
to show you the time
must be...

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~ Worship And Praise   ~ 
( Pantoum ) 
 

~O~


Worship God, pray each day, all way. 
Keep the Lord always in my life. 
Surely follow Him every day. 
Worship and Praise, in good...

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A Night On A Wharf

The couple decide to walk. The boardwalk still lit at this late hour guides them. They walk hand in hand,..whispering softly with small talk...solemn.,. lonely , yet together. The walk is...

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You, alone, can be the cure to my grief
The guilt that overflows and then gives birth to mirthwhile relief
Because of you, my temporary highs don't easily wear off
Because if you are here, life would be...

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Theoretical abstractions,
reductive hard word choices,
to describe and prescribe spiritual experiences
are unsatisfactory for daily consumption and absorption
as they reify exceptions to your Business As Usual,
which is probably LeftBrain patriarchally dominant.

Exceptional Left-Right bicameral ego/eco-consciousness,
of natureLeft-spiritRight nondual co-arising...

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 (Chant: You threw me out like a pen that ran out of ink
I’m no longer useful for writing…drawing…I’ll stop resisting & fighting
Though the tears run down my eyes…the tears were clouding my eyes –...

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The feeling of comfort

Is one of the most incredible and humbling

Emotions that has ever flooded through my veins

And caressed every nerve in my body.



Having all of your troubles be lessened

And the ache of your troubled...

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I wonder if our reasons
for growing random acts of violence
are similar
to our dwindling random acts of reasoned healing,
kindness,
gratitude,
unrequited love,
uncommodified,
unconscripted,
unscripted,
uncontained
restoring cooperative ecopolitical relationships forward
not just because this is our right and healthy familial thing to do
but...

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Date   August 10  2014
 Damian stood facing his new full
Length mirror recognizing his new
Image. "Not bad. 13 looks good on
Me." He muttered in his
Room which was amazingly without 
His pesky brothers and...

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We came walking blind bends at dusk, 
An overhanging fig picked fresh.
No pavements, just a nervous trust 
that drivers would skirt our single line.

Hugging the roadside with torches lit, 
Phones swung glowing to the ground...

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I still feel under the weather today April 2nd, 2023

Unseen enemy invades my body 
with platoon of green berets air
rating, and enfilading immune system viz 
Hib bully knock and sock kin me 
courtesy roebuck seers...

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Chains, so heavy. Binding every body part.  
A cell: its cold metal bars blocking out light.   
A wall, originally meant to protect, now a barricade nothing penetrates.
A net, once safety, now entangling,...

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anticipatory anxiety fosters catastrophization...,

especially bombardment of online scare tactics
courtesy fiendish insidious loathsome sinister oafs
rubbing their hands at aggrieved party;
punch drunk cyber thieves ecstatic
acquiring by hook and/or crook
sought after precious, priceless, and proverbial data
after loosed ransomware...

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The sea is so bright and it illuminates the nostalgic night
It sways and sways to the rhythm of my young heart
The clouds are formulating right before my eyes with might
Raindrops collapse upon the ground from...

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Steve: This sounds like the traditional Hindu caste system. I get it; all that Kama Sutra stuff.

John: You mean Kama Sutra IPA? It’s a local brew. Not bad.

Steve: Douche bag say wha?

John: Wha?

Steve: Please continue,...

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Demons Dancing On My Chest
By Angela C. Freeman
9/25/17
I am dying soon...you already know 
You need to leave...you need to go
The longer that you stick around
The harder my heart starts to pound 
It pounds out of...

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When the mirror of 
               life is a gossamer film,       
 veiling v i n...

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“Reflective Eyes”
by Jason Palm
06-11-2015

Innocence,
lingering...
lying in wait,
unable to feel the blessings yet to come.

Do you see it? Do you hear it?
Is it what you dream of?

Cries of pain and joy awaken,
sparks of life ignite, 
your time...

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Listen to the shifting winds 
carrying musical meteors,
there soars floating
letters between 
lyrical lines,
emanating runes
that reflect 
revolving rhymes
of faith within
and beyond.
For we are more than
just spectators or actors, 
in this theatrical life,
we are the assigned 
maestros...

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From strange elixir of mind 
a form walks in forming strange lines, 
in a poem of a chant of a spell, 
encantrain echoes it's well.
Where roses bloom, 
dead and spirits recite their bleed 
of encantation-...

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Poems for Poets VI



Caveat
by Michael R. Burch

If only we were not so eloquent,
we might sing, and only sing, not to impress,
but only to enjoy, to be enjoyed.

We might inundate the earth with thankfulness
for light, although...

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She Cries Daughter's Absence

my worst fears realized
my daughter gone missing
my one and only
precious hope in life
it's beyond surreal
it's being torn over and over,
by those black bears running down river
ripping me apart time and time
if only...

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POEMS FOR POETS IV

PROFESSOR POETS

These are poems about professor poets and other wanna-be “intellectuals” who miss the main point of real poetry, which is to connect with readers via pleasing sounds and the communication of...

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