Long Commonplace Poems

Lady’s Favor
by Michael R. Burch

May
spring
fling
her riotous petals
devil-
may-care
into the air,
ignoring the lethal
nettles
and may
May
cry gleeful-
ly Hooray!
as the abundance
settles,
till a sudden June
swoon
leave us out of tune,
torn,
when the last rose is left
inconsolably bereft,
rudely shorn
of every device but her thorn.


The...

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LOVE POEMS III by Michael R. Burch

These are love poems by Michael R. Burch about passion, desire, lust, sex, dating, relationships, devotion and marriage. 


Violets
by Michael R. Burch

Once, only once,
when the wind flicked your skirt
to...

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R.I.P.
by Michael R. Burch

When I am lain to rest
and my soul is no longer intact, 
but dissolving, like a sunset
diminishing to the west...

and when at last
before His throne my past
is put to test
and the demons...

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Come, You
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation by Michael R. Burch

This was Rilke’s last poem, written ten days before his death. He died open-eyed in the arms of his doctor on December 29, 1926, in the...

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Archaic Torso of Apollo
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

We cannot know the beheaded god
nor his eyes' forfeited visions. But still
the figure's trunk glows with the strange vitality
of a lamp lit from within,...

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The Panther
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

His weary vision's so overwhelmed by iron bars,
his exhausted eyes see only blank Oblivion.
His world is not our world. It has no stars.
No light. Ten thousand...

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I question my own interplay of psychology and political science.
Does this too facilely root analogy within ecology of climate health v pathology?

Intersections of sociology and psychology are at least academically commonplace.
I have a friend with...

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Translation of Eric Mottram’s Courbet: Elegy 8 by T. Wignesan

Blanches oeuvres ouvertes
résident dans les jours
la surface du banc de travail est noire
les géraniums-lierres
les fougères et les adragans
accumulent leurs oeuvres et jours:
La toile noire de Courbet
un...

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Regret
by Michael R. Burch

Regret,
a bitter
ache to bear . . .

once starlight
languished
in your hair . . .

a shining there
as brief
as rare.

Regret . . .
a pain
I chose to bear . . .

unleash
the torrent
of your hair . ....

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This is my translation of the first of Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke began the first Duino Elegy in 1912, as a guest of Princess Marie von Thurn und Taxis, at Duino Castle, near Trieste on...

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Thiru-Valluvar on Praising the Good Qualiities of Ladies: Canto 112 - Nalam Pinainththu Uraiththal

[The poet devotes the third part of his treatise, the Thiruk-Kural to INBATHTHUPPAAL, the amorous relationship between the sexes, i.e.,  cantos...

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1

Sunrise, late winter
skunk smell
turkey flock
playful otter, too.

The white heron
a great blue,
white phase,
in the abandoned beaver pond.

Purple clematis
its long-awned achenes
in globose heads
spidery, fiery, extravagant fruit!

To identify or classify
birds by
the complexity or beauty
of their songs.

And so
what is...

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I am home ...

oh, my heart
      pray, hush its cadence
         for the sacred sake of unsated thirst
   beg its thrums...

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What is it that makes a feeling? Why are some words soothing? We have heard poets, in lyrical ways, describing the delights of stars or waterfalls or rainbows. They awaken in us the wonder of...

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Achab*, Translation of Pierre Emmanuel’s Achab by T. Wignesan

One man alone stands erect before the king, and speaks
A man
Alone

The king is not accustomed to being confronted face to 
      ...

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In history one can read of an earlier time,
When poetry and lyrics written in rhyme,
Were commonplace.  A travelling band
Of troubadours would wander the land,
Writing and singing, to bestow delights
On ladies, peasants, and errant knights.

Their...

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A definite bonehead moment

since revised when das scribe 
made laughing stock of himself 
(circa ~ 8:30 post meridiem 
December twenty eighth, 2022).

A retrospective account
revisited courtesy the following 
honest to dog doe eyed, 
doofus dopey dilemma
allows,...

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Struggle to write

Witnessed courtesy the following poetic sight
especially when dark shadows foretell edge of night
twilight zone expanding
into outer limits of width and height
obscuring webbed wide world
subsequently where black tentacles alight.

This poetic prologue feeble exercise to...

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There's a time to chase the world,
and a time for the world to chase you...
the distinction between destiny and damnation
can become ambiguous as a dream
on the edge of twilight
when the world is watching you ruthlessly,
hungering...

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As an attempt, in the most philisophical sense.

A line was drawn in the sand yet filtered;
Through its etched silence within hand...

Amidst twilight with adjective faith will break the mends,

It is my hope that someday we...

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A thousand tumbles takes a bottle in the sea-
a thousand tumbles and whirls and swoops.
A million grains of sand takes that bottle in the sea,
to break apart,
and fragment like a snowflake fractal.
How many waves carry...

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At altamira cave
For centuries,snowfall after snowfall,
Outside, in what would be Spain
They painted their walls and left their mark
Calling down the magic of image
To control the beasts whose flesh and bone and hide
Made possible their desperate...

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The latter classified as a voivode
(prince) of Wallachia
(part of modern Romania).
Surrounded by enemies
that included the Hungarians,
the Ottomans, his younger brother,
and Walachian nobility,
Vlad employed extremely
cruel gruesome measures
to inspire fear in those
who opposed him.

He earned his nickname
by...

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I (a youthful sexagenarian)
can no longer quip being
a country boy at heart,
but me as urban cowboy,
I declare would never 
so fuhgeddaboudit dear reader
nothing 'cept bucolic existence
laboring organic garden
harvesting fruits and vegetables
by the bushel and quart
constitute...

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Two hundred and forty seconds or more,
Laying, fetal position in Mother’s fluids,
Fighting for air, for life
Foreshadowing his existence.

Birthed, alone
Taken from one home of solitude to 
One of solitary confinement.
To us, a tragedy, to him; life.

December...

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