Long Deck Poems

The Amistad Mutiny

Slavery, a dirty word no matter how it’s pronounced:
Abducted and herded to the slave fortress of Lomboko1 for trade.
To be tossed in chains below deck on the Portuguese ship Tecora,2
Sailing the Atlantic Middle...

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"The Payload" 

The payload 
came crashing down
like rain expelled
from the fat belly 
of a ruinous pregnant cloud 
bilious with buxom promise

it came crashing down 
like school fish released 
from the tight confines
of a course rope...

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This is for the Contest - 'Titanic - Fare Thee Well' Sponsored by Tom Woody.
                    ...

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Today, catching sight of the mallards
crying over Lake Iware:
Must I too vanish into the clouds?
—Prince Otsu translation by Michael R. Burch  

This world—
to what may we compare it?
To autumn fields
lying darkening at dusk
illuminated by...

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Desharah  woke early morning 8 am.
She wanted to check out her new
House. But she waited for Sedanah 
To come out of her dreams. 
"WAKE UP SEDA."  They roomed
Together. That's what her mother 
Wanted....

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From ISIS to J HORE totally 
unafraid of the JIHAD domestic 
threat arriving to end my 
life over my American poetry 
accompanying Rasta yago 
waving a 9MM driving a 
Tahoe parked next to her 
dark...

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Merciles Beaute ("Merciless Beauty")
by Geoffrey Chaucer
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Your eyes slay me suddenly;
their beauty I cannot sustain,
they wound me so, through my heart keen.

Unless your words heal me hastily,
my heart's wound will remain...

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"The Swoon Hypothesis" - Part 2



Arimathea stands next to you and I on the deck, soon we are back in Nazareth, you press into my palm, 
“A very rare Dubunni coin” you say - on...

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As to the this and the that and the how and the why,
    I pass no judgement on the tale at hand.
And leave it to scribes to much later decide
  ...

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~ You  Are  Precious  ~
 ( Sonnet )


~O~


In His eyes you are always precious you know. 
God made you unique in every way, you see. 
His love for us in every thing...

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[Well, ShallowMan’s ne’er at a loss
for voicing shallow thoughts that gloss.
With trenchant wit he reaps the dross
when seeking sense in applesauce.

But to his aid flies FactoidMan
who always has a Fact at hand;
with him, who needs...

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MY Collaboration with Ricky Nelson in the Last Days of 1980

The eventful news of that day about what was found on board that crashed plane, won't replace that particular memory of Mr. Rick Nelson's hearty...

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Date:   July   2051

Early 7:30  Friday morning most
Of the family were in their extravagant 
Dreams. All was well or so it seems.
Moderate rustling. Somebody was
Woke. Molly was first on display of
The...

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Face to the sky,
Breath of the Caribbean
Woven with earthy Autumn,
Saturates the alveoli of my lungs,
Pouring raw impulses into the neurons of
My pleasure centers, so triggering a myriad of
Memories ... the demurring requiem to summer tide...

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if you have taken the time to browse through this eclectic collection of self-indulgent foolishness, I hope you’ve been entertained by the quirkiness of its content, or at the very least, annoyed by the pervasiveness...

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SHE was my wife, once ...

long ago, so very long ago ...
we met on the showboat, up-river,
almost fifty years back now ...
I was a young officer for the Confederacy,
working for the Yanks after The Turn,

supplying...

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Climbing from the sands, velociraptors turn as one
Triceratops and stegosaurs arise to share the fun
And then they march en masse toward that briny maelstrom
And Adam Adams yells, “They’re heading back where they came from!”

Suddenly, so...

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It is so hard to let go of love,
lovingly.

It sharks, 
unpeels more gut more quickly
than reel or reeler ever lost
in all those years of lazy inches
in and out:
casting,
winding in and playing out,
hardly fishing, rarely catching
anything
from...

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Traditional Solitaire potential combinations...

that clenched another win today
February 20th, 2024 
(eight hundred and ninety yesterdays ago 
since June 13th, 2021)
original crafting date of following poem,
when yours truly 
single handedly trumped computer, 
for umpteenth time,
which saw...

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These Limericks were written by many different PS poets who are all remaining anonymous.  If you would like to add one of your own and remain anonymous send it to my soup mail. Enjoy!

Roses...

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Soon, the sun was lying low, a bright full moon was now on show
Santa switched on Walnut’s glow… “Ho Ho Ho and away we go.”
Walnut played along and led the team of reindeer and their...

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Traditional Solitaire potential combinations...
that clenched another win (yahoo)
jimmied today August 15th, 2022 single handedly
just before the crack of dawn
with both hands tied behind my back,
and a blindfold worn over my eyes.

While in the midst of...

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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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Traditional Solitaire potential combinations...
that clenched another win (today June 13th, 2021) single handedly

While in the midst of playing solitaire 
(with losing outcome foreordained 
after a couple moves), I became gripped 
with combinations predicated on thirteen...

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PART 1:          THE MEETING

Alone one night neath lantern light, I trudged a weary mile.
Forlorn, I went with shoulders bent (the storms around me howled)
until I met...

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