Long Dank Poems

An icy chill descends on 13 Beaver Veil Cottage as sisters Ester and Ellie walk gingerly up the steps on this wet and windy night.
This once charming pied-a-terre was now in a final phase denouement.
The...

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n icy chill descends on 13 Beaver Veil Cottage as sisters Ester and Ellie walk gingerly up the steps on this wet and windy night.
This once charming pied-a-terre was now in a final phase denouement.
The...

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“Forever”



When The Terrors came,
The Uncontrollable Ones,
she closed her eyes
and listened for the notes
her mother had planted
amongst the deep blues,
beds of Forget-Me-Nots,
she followed the 
labyrinthine trail 
and through a gate unhinged,
it would seem destroyed, thrown aside,
she...

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I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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I used to dream of a dark hall. Dim. Empty with thick cheap navy curtains. 
The breeze. It felt hot and old. It shivered in the curtains that lined the walls on both sides.
The breeze....

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Rejection
a roundel by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your beauty from your heart has so erased
Pity, that it's useless to complain;
For Pride now holds your mercy by a chain.

I'm guiltless, yet my sentence has...

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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,...

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[Now ShallowMan is quite content
receiving FactoidMan’s consent
to quibble and express dissent
as long as keeping covenant
with fingers crossed and belfry bent
when viewing Facts in sealed cement:]

SM
“The Facts you give me circumvent
those ‘truths’ your chuckles supplement;
although they...

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Translations of the Oldest English Rhyming Poems

The Rhymed Poem aka The Rhyming Poem aka The Riming Poem
Old English/Anglo-Saxon poem from the Exeter Book, circa 990 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

(excerpt)
He who granted me life...

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,It's like some long lost fairy tale 
That's handed down through time
But couldn't be, as you will see
For this strange tale is mine.

I chose to take a country road 
I do from time to time
To...

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Alone

For in the end it's just one soul that's passed.
Alone I'll lie in sod of greenest grass
to answer for the sins that I've amassed
at gates of gold I'll see if I may pass.
In to this...

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Considering how many times I set out to pen a small,
Master piece of art, a gem that might underwrite,
The utter liability of being just that stamp,
Or tramp, or whatever other denomination one might reliably take...

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That soft-spoken Sovereign commands a big stick, 
runs the world into ruins, once our bailiwick.
If asked why, He grins grimly, pale lips slightly pursed:
"Vindication? Straightforward: It's Me and Me First" 

(To mesmerise people He needed...

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In the May-time of my life
time bloomed each day a prickly boll –
but I, like the softest cotton within such a sharp seed  
swaddled in the purity of security 
for what seemed like eternity...

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The Williwonk rose from its hibernating sleep
And jumped up in joy with a sinuous leap.
Time for some mischief, he mischievously said,
I'll shake up Manvile and fill them with dread.

For such a vile creature was the...

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When we think of traveling we most often think of going from one location to another. That’s good but I sometimes like to return in reverie to times in my past. Places where I spent...

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(Lights dim, single spotlight illuminates the speaker, dressed in simple attire. Voice starts trembling, building in intensity)

Can forgiveness mend, a childhood, 
fractured in the dark? 
Where the scars are a map, etched, 
not just in...

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A Friend in the Dark


A soft screeching sound over head brought me back
With Grey Bane in hand I swung quickly around
When I saw what it was I broke out in laughter
The little guy flew to...

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Along the road called forestry, the silver ash weeps over me
as I meander 'round the dell and glade.
Pass scars of sand pits long disused, where gullies, washes speak ‘abused!’
Reclamation offers now a new facade.

Need for...

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A lovely summers day with my family on a Sunday,
could not be any more perfect than for us to get away,
so we packed a picnic hamper and threw in a fishing rod
and drove towards a...

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[Arrhhh… this be a rewrite of a yarn I told, which truly wasn’t tawdry
alas, I can but wonder if some thought it would be bawdy.
The ‘Neptune’s Daughter’ was a fiction, No inuendo there 
She’s now...

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The Room of the Unrequited
By Roger White
    That evening, stillness permeated the lavender-scented room.  Dusk crept through the windows
smudged by oily fingers, The day’s twilight left a dull umbra on wall...

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Inside A ‘72 Econoline

This old green van has a musty smell to it,
Like a pair of sweaty rancid socks
Mixed with half-empty beer cans.
It’s a banged up thing, this ’72 Econoline.
Scratches and mysterious dents 
Cover its...

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The king was recruiting, He needed brave knights,
To protect all his wealth and his land,
And seek if he could, someone who would succeed,
And was worthy of his daughter’s hand.
A leader, a nobleman, brave to the...

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For Within Thine Eyes, I See Love's Eternal Gaze, 
- a collaboration with Susan Ashley
 
How shall I, let your kind and most tender heart go
with its immense depths, sweet kisses, resplendent glow.
I could do...

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