Long Compose Poems

Medieval Poems



Wulf and Eadwacer
(Old English circa 990 AD)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

My people pursue him like crippled prey.
They'll rip him apart if he approaches their pack.
We are so different!

Wulf's on one island; I'm on...

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Dream of Infinity
by Michael R. Burch

Have you tasted the bitterness of tears of despair?
Have you watched the sun sink through such pale, balmless air
that your soul sought its shell like a crab on a beach,
then...

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Sonnets XXV-XXXII

Archaischer Torso Apollos (“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...

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Could you tell me, please,
how to become polypathically smarter,
economically deep learned and wisely adept 
co-arising ecologically systemic theories
to grow more co-empathic trust 
of and for cooperatively organizing positive 
nutritional slow-growth,
optimally sustainable Continuous Quality Health Improvement?

Try...

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My most popular poems on the Internet (I)

A number of my poems and translations have gone viral, according to Google, and some have been copied onto hundreds to thousands of web pages. That’s a lot...

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Sweet Rose of Virtue
by William Dunbar (c. 1460-1530)
loose translation/modernization/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

after William Dunbar

Sweet rose of virtue and of gentleness,
delightful lily of youthful wantonness,
richest in bounty and in beauty clear
and in every virtue that...

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(continued from A Year Of Months (January-June)
https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/heroic_crown_of_sonnets_-_part_one_772928


A Year Of Months (July-December)

8. July

July now follows summer's song of June;
with sun ablaze, her days are humid, warm.
Great time to languish in the afternoon,
and later, watch an evening...

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If political scientists study power relationships,
could economists study interior and exterior communications
for cooperative/competitive nurturing for/against
empowerment/disempowerment
integral win/win health association
through disintegrating
pathologica win/losel 
dissociation trends?

Both political and economic researchers,
one and all together,
of sound neurologically wealthy
monotheistic AnthroMind
and ecologically healthy...

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"A word like a river flows through the mind"                          ...

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Tell me, my friend,  
does infinity not unsettle your reason,  
or is it a comfort—to believe it meaningless?  

Look beyond the rust of your disbelief—  
this isn’t the frostbitten dogma you...

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POEMS ABOUT EROS AND CUPID

These are translations of ancient Greek poems about Eros. Eros was the Greek counterpart of the Roman god Cupid. While today we tend to think of Cupid as an angelic cherub...

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What would the rich do without the poor?
If there was no poor to clean the floor
What would the rich do without the poor?
If there was no one to guard the door
What would the rich do...

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And that is why... this platform is here for answers they can't deny...
It's a truth within a complexity that is standing high...
Let us follow the roots and explore the depths of its grand design...
Cause every...

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Michael Joseph Jackson

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural...

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K373 and K374 of the THIRUKKURAL: Translated with Commentary

The poet's name, THIRUVALLUVAR [Thiru = Sacred and Valluvar = the name of the priesthood caste of the « Pariah » (whom Mahatma Gandhi prefered to call...

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Predator Antiqua Multis Versus Respiciens Tempus


I Watched Midnight Sun Fall Into Dark Shades Of Oblivion

Part I

I watched midnight sun fall into dark shades of oblivion
with its dying light screaming in agonizing moans
upon bloody battlefields of...

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Amidst the chaos of chalk and dreams deferred,
We ask ourselves, where can we find the spark
In this labyrinth of rote and rigid words?
The burden we bear, a future stark

We've trudged through dusty classrooms, yearning
For wisdom...

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Ace colonoscopy doctor Kellen Karl Kovalovich

revisited January 23rd, 2024
on the evening before yours truly
(the one and only Matthew Scott Harris),
a stand up comic wannabe, who
historically heartily hales 
from Schwenksville, Pennsylvania
undergoes oh joy rapture colonoscopy.

Three days...

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ME dear FATHER you already know,
But you need to be briefed,
On a tragedy I believe you must not know.
There’s a deadly dance with violence killing teens in America’s Black Communities.
Use to be, 
Good Christian mothers,...

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Injustice is just an inconvenience until it is proven...
When the sun hit their helmets it startled the very souls of the natives
a signal upon their eyes that spoke like a siren of ill prophecy to...

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Poet's Pre-Notes: A poem from my 8th week in a Stanford continuing education class offered on the internet, a study of free verse and structure. The poem writing technique is to write as unconsciously as...

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Dancing In Horror With Fate In Blackest Abyss
Collaboration with Kurt Ravidas

I walk mountain storm, step out to cut deep its edge
forever tempting that fall from its narrow ledge,
in the midst of ravenous rage and great...

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“On the Sonnet”
by John Keats

If by dull rhymes our English must be chained,
And, like Andromeda, the Sonnet sweet
Fettered, in spite of painéd loveliness;
Let us find out, if we must be constrained,
Sandals more interwoven and complete
To...

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It is with tears in my eyes that I write these verses of hope, it is with tears in my eyes I climb the mountain of joy  and stands on top of it and...

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“Nuns Fret Not at Their Convent's Narrow Room”
by William Wordsworth

Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his...

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