Long Corridors Poems

Flint 
Within its brilliance gleaming
Cool black in lacquered polished silver chrome
Cranked up pistons bleached in summer’s heat
Hot steam rising as gears thundering
Beyond the crystal liquid city lights
Highways built across the land
In hearts felt pride American...

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I have travelled through the cluttered corridors of my tired mind countless times. 
I have reached deep into the dark abyss of my captive soul and in that profoundly disturbing darkness, I went searching to...

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This page shows my writing process and is part of Poetrysoup's first workshop.  The workshop's intent is to reveal how revision strengthens a poem. Constructive feedback can be a gift.  Should any journal...

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“The Juniper Prize: Between the Known and the Unknown”

That man built a house 
of straw and sticks
and the stories that burned within -

all consuming the titled prize;

like a bird 
sings a song
the metre repeats and...

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{Poet’s Note : I wrote this poem for the passing of my very dear friend & comrade, Cecyl Esau, Umkhonto we Sizwe Commander in 2021, as a contribution to his memorial service. Cecyl was given...

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February 27th, 2018 literary tinkering rejiggered October 11th, 2024

I believed fortune cookie maxim 
cryptic message couched
Apple Macbook Pro update process
alternately titled “markedly 
a Luke warm welcome Matt unfurled
courtesy Jimmy John,
who embarked on 
imp apostle bull...

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How one twenty first century married mortal male (me - Matthew Scott Harris)...
found himself bewitched about Circe,
particularly after reading book title by the same name.

An enchantress and a minor goddess
in ancient Greek mythology and religion
depicted...

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He walks around with his nose pointing upward in the air
With calculating eyes that are so fearful, mouth moving from side to side and a tongue that keeps twisting around the things that are profound....

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Translation of « On est les oubliés » (They/We are the neglected and forgotten lot)
by the songster-poet Gauvin SERS
(For the last two years, this young unassuming Frenchman, full of verve and disarming airs has been...

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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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(A call for the lights to dim as a single spotlight illuminates the legend Judy Garland, who is center stage. She wears a faded housecoat as her beautiful, brandy brown eyes hold a lifetime of...

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Several days passed as DynDoeth awaited a response from Seileach concerning his request for a private audience.  He checked and re-checked the argument that he would make to have the throne replaced back into...

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“Upon Waking”


Slumber has its upsides 
while the outside runs around
like a split fowlyard, 
cacophonous 
pecking at each other 
and at the ground…

Elsewhere, 

like dull background noise
through the fog of dream 
the sound of the gamble...

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White old men are kind
White old men are divine
White old men are my brothers
White old men are inviting me to supper
White old men are my dream
White old men are very clean
White old men want to...

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Gold is your soul


The drive there will be boring.
The arrival so momentous!
The disappointing greeters;
The sights not quite as expected.
The smell at times will be rancid.
The art of it all will be lost.
They will say “Welcome...

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“What's this then,” he asked him as Sprinteren poked his head through the stable door.
     “Umm, we're guarding the back door to make sure no one tries to get in or...

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As I thought upon the coming of February, the month designated as Black History Month, I began to think upon potential ancestors of long long ago. My imagination got the best of me, and this...

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As hapless vapors of decay, surround us, suffocating the fecund earth. A blanket of suffocating grey, born from the diseased aspirations of humanity. We, the self-appointed masters of a planet in shambles, gaze upon the...

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You crawled out of her innocent womb 
Kicking , begging and screaming
But it is too late for you to be redeemed 
You were born evil and corrupted 
and you have a  very  dirty...

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This is my translation of Rainer Maria Rilke's second elegy from his Duino Elegies, which he began composing at Duino Castle in 1912. 

Second Elegy
by Rainer Maria Rilke
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch 

Every angel...

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The hearts of white men are silently fuming
The spirits of  angry widows steadily   grow bitter 
The bosoms of weeping mothers  open wide
While the relics of the past kept washing upon our...

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You healed me…you saved me with a kind, kind heart of sympathy
With well-spoken words (and you deleted the history of my endless rage)
Of empathetic wisdom and positivity…erasing the negativity and rehearsing accord in my mind...

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Shayna Punim - You came a long way baby!

Though negligible communication
now transpires between us
twenty seven years ago
come February fourth,
two thousand and twenty five,
our lives (affecting yours truly
and that of mother, plus Eden
a caring older sister)
irrevocably...

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Date:   June  2051

8:15 am-- Damian scheduled to have 
A few improvements and 
modifications of the house and perimeter.
Family in The house were alert and
Present. Molly and Holly were in the
Children's room bathing...

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...the village shivers   a hive of restless souls
skin pricklin' with anticipation
as costumed runners fixin' to gather — hearts a-thrummin'
              ...

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