Long Concentration camp Poems

First they came for the Muslims

after Martin Niemoller

First they came for the Muslims
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Muslim.

Then they came for the homosexuals
and I did not speak out
because I was...

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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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Postcard 1
by Miklós Radnóti
written August 30, 1944
translated by Michael R. Burch
 
Out of Bulgaria, the great wild roar of the artillery thunders,
resounds on the mountain ridges, rebounds, then ebbs into silence
while here men, beasts, wagons...

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Sad place when Lucifer sits behind a desk allowing severe repeat violent offenders to give false statements falsified documents in order to frame innocent persons from behind bars after over 20 convictions queen pin drug...

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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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On the canvas of a cold, grey, winter sky,
In large black letters above the Iron Gate,
Read the message: "Arbeit Macht Frei".
A shrewdly sinister, propagandist lie,
Designed to deceive all of our eventual fate.
This was the very...

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Approximately three plus days elapsed...
without yours truly experiencing urge to defecate

Neither bloating nor constipation
arose, but one nondescript anguished
logophile anticipated intestinal blockage,
hence prophesying worse case scenario

I (predicated in direction for an adult)
ingested three Dulcolax tablets
and subsequently...

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We presume to know of a far better way
But our devices will falter somewhere, someday
Surely there will come a time, a time to pay
We don't care, our chosen course we shall stay
In light of His...

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America the Worlds Hope for Peace and Prosperity Has Become A Culture of Death

How did this happen?  America, how did you become a culture of death?  You were
founded upon the Word of God...

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Don Winslow of the Navy at the movies...…., the Lone Ranger, and the shadow, on the radio. Three of my favorite pastimes in Wilmington NC, From just before my first grade in school to the...

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I am Flight Sgt Ramsay Roe, and my memories have faded,  
Of my experiences in Burma, and their chronological order, 
But into my memory’s deep recesses i have dug and waded, 
Although the exact...

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Letter to My Wife
by Miklos Radnoti
translated by Michael R. Burch

A poem written during the Holocaust in Lager Heidenau, in the mountains above Zagubica, August-September, 1944

Deep down in the darkness hell awaits--silent, mute.
Silence screams in my...

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Who was Lizzie Van Zyl?
A small girl stands on Woodcock Bridge
Pointing at her reflection in the water.
The glint from the sun, and a cold wind,
Distorts a distant memory of gold, and places long forgotten.

For the...

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Dear Satan,
You are a formidable foe, I grant you,
For you confuse the Body of Christ, my Body into hating itself, reified and 
fractured into tormented factions on my cross,
For you confuse my Children into doubting...

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“The War that Defies Justification”

Redundant billionaires preaching basic information
Incumbent vacant vulnerable  stares looking for personal validation 

Another easily manipulated youth converted to the latest celebrity cult 
While my brothers who deal in only honest...

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Only if you knew that you live like a God in a place my heart has found you fit to rule
only if you knew that I would be the opposite of what God would cal...

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Ruth and her six year old daughter Annie, were moving along the countryside by Train. Ruth was reminiscing.  She was staring deeply into her six year old daughter's beautiful brown eyes. Ruth was feeling...

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Marriage to alarmingly ballooning...

dramatically expanding spouse,
when adorning buttons 
pop off undersized blouse
which spurs yours truly to grouse,
and ruffle mine tail feathers 
while listening to Scheherazade.

Eats her weigh out of home and house
unsolicited feedback courtesy
quite doubtful,...

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no end to this neverending sentence...just a sour note and a few mad quotes from the afterlife
afterlife? more like ants in the afterbirth...once a mighty warrior now a worm...i slither and i squirm...
no fire and...

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These emotions became cataclysmic,
An apocalyptic event inside this cavernous soul,
Nothing but ghost inhabit this land of control,
A concentration camp where love comes to die,
You can’t imagine this weight,
The crushing magnitude of inhabiting alone,
I witness miracles...

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At The Gates of Auschwitz

Today, I stand
At the gates of hell;
“Arbeit macht frei,”
(work sets you free!)
That is Auschwitz.
Where they burned God’s children,
And the world stood by;
Oblivious,
To what was happening inside.

The League of Nations
(Whose mandate was...

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Old Macdonald was among allies E-I-E-I-O
And on his team he had Great Britain E-I-E-I-O
There was France and Canada
 New Zealand and Russia 
Also China and India
Don’t forget United States of America 
E-I-E-I-O  

Baba Black...

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Marriage to alarmingly ballooning...
dramatically expanding spouse

Eats her weigh out of home and house
unsolicited feedback courtesy
yours truly, she does grouse
quite doubtful, she could pose
for playboy and/or penthouse
returning explicit volley
of trailing appellations lobbed

expletive laced epithets
directed at her...

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Not far from my bustling town of Baiano, which welcomed anyone, 
there was a camp set up for gypsies,
not with dangerous tramps and thieves,
it looked like a concentration camp:
a territory restricted and feared
by the locals...

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Shema ("Listen")
by Primo Levi
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You who live secure
in your comfortable homes,
who return each evening to find
warm food and a hearty welcome ...

Consider: is this a "man"
who slogs through the mud,
who knows...

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