Long Constricted Poems

Medieval Poem V

A Proverb from Winfred's Time
anonymous Old English poem, circa 757-786
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

1.
The procrastinator puts off purpose,
never initiates anything marvelous,
never succeeds, and dies alone.

2.
The late-deed-doer delays glory-striving,
never indulges daring dreams,
never succeeds,...

Read More

Winter Awakens My Care
anonymous Middle English poem, circa 1300
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Winter awakens all my care
as leafless trees grow bare.
For now my sighs are fraught
whenever it enters my thought:
regarding this world's joy,
how everything...

Read More

The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem and The Riming Poem
Old English Poem (i.e., Anglo-Saxon Poem) from the Exeter Book, ca. 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this sun
and...

Read More

The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem and The Riming Poem - Part II
anonymous Old English Poem from the Exeter Book, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

He who granted me life created this...

Read More

Bob was the first man she had ever loved, sure she had some crushes when she was in school but nothing like she had felt with Bob. He was six years older handsome and self...

Read More

Re: viewing the emotionally prosperous papa razz zee life I did not live

The following poetic account 
written more'n a dozen 
dirty dancing decades ago, 
while I (a socially 
withdrawn Homo Sapiens) 
one indigent Yahoo 
groveled...

Read More

Ruing the emotionally prosperous papa razz zee life I did not live

The following poetic account 
written more'n a dozen dirty dancing decades ago, 
while I (a socially withdrawn Homo Sapiens) 
groveled along (on a secret...

Read More

I wait—

here I wait
for white magic reverie
to embrace me   free me

here I wait—
an hourglass full
of leopard-print thoughts 
sugar-granular-musings spill
the beginning to the end of a story
the potential   the inevitable
life finite ...

Read More

"MY LOVE"

Who is the one beside me 
holding up my weight? Always 
there no matter how much is 
on her plate! Her hair so pretty 
with that shiny Auburn gleam, 
her eyes a soothing brown...

Read More

The late night storm rushed into the valley,
Pouring down, 
Creating the sleepy ambiance only a mountains lull can provide.  
The crisp damp air crackles to life at lights first caste over the mountain,
into the...

Read More

If you are a Zen Buddhist
a Taoist,
where past wealthy resonance
interdependently governs global developing history
with resilient future health projections,

If you are a Zeroist,
or an in-between Zoroastrian,
not asha (1) and not all druj (0) either,

You may know,
and...

Read More

NO FREEDOM FOUND FOR  FOOLS

The three of us knew what we were doing
We also knew what we were doing was wrong
What we didn’t know was that trouble was brewing
But numbers made us all feel...

Read More

Gym lights take a little while to run
Flickers, bickers with itself
Fade on
Nightly, he lays, contemplating
The escape of his talent
When did it happen
While I run my manicure on his scalp
Attempting to purge anxiety 
He always said...

Read More

When Irish eyes are smiling,
And the gymnast smile extends to curve her petal-red lips,
That's when she'll let her waves fall down with the grace of 
a faerie.

If in a wheat field the sheathes would glow...

Read More

Lamenting life lost before mine untimely death

Last rays of wicked flickering candlelight
even to this present day 
(October 4th, 2023)
lxiv anniversaries marking birth
emotions of ambivalence self directed at me,
and family of origin diatribes still career,
within psyche...

Read More

NO FREEDOM FOUND FOR  FOOLS

The three of us knew what we were doing
We also knew what we were doing was wrong
What we didn’t know was that trouble was brewing
But numbers made us all feel...

Read More

Malodorous tavern’s garret, the codger it accommodates, No more,
Fuzzled in brew, his fuzzy lady, her life she lives to abhor.

Randy colleen gape at her with aghast,
Talk around that she has “the dead hands of the...

Read More

"Rose Thorns"



The bonfire lit within
births a new soul
barefoot and bleeding
it unbends the bound
armoured heart 
constricted 
beating impatient 
naked dreams
hellbent on leaving 
The Numb 
behind,

Casting forgotten
shaman shadow
from an empty 
burnt out shell
a new deity
divine and healing
begins...

Read More

Anti-anxiety Poem
Author:  Shawn Wilkinson 2022

Are you feeling lonely and shattered?
Have you lost the key to your heart?

Trapped by the Darkness
Suffering feeling of Isolation

Imagine feeling locked inside a locker of hell.
Torment without end

Help me Lord!
Help...

Read More

IN THE BLUEBELL WOODS AT SHOTLEY BRIDGE

Shotley Bridge woods must  no longer exist
Though I looked for them often as an adult.

Eventually  I stopped looking fior the woods.
However, I often recalled them in my...

Read More

 Convoluted; buoyant, defiant contention,
            sleeps in the corridors of mind.
           Dreaming of release...

Read More

“The devil is alive”, someone yelled out. A congregation downing crosses crossed their hearts and prayed to God to extinguish the devil. Right then and there, a sensation ran from my toes to my head...

Read More

True add verse situation,
     whereat me mission
     trans send dint state didst ache
after yours truly nearly
     did nearly break
chassis 'pon took drastic
 ...

Read More

I didn’t want to let her down. She was a fellow teacher in the language institute and a very dear friend. When my husband went on trips, which was often, she’d look out for me,...

Read More

I walk amongst them but nobody sees
I blend unnoticed 
As I inhale my disease

The air is constricted causing me to fall
All the things which once mattered
Now seem not to matter at all

Going nowhere just standing...

Read More