Long Deltas Poems

(based on Aldous Huxley's book "Brave New World")

Human hatchery

Clink clink clink clink...
Test tubes prattling past
along the chrome plated production line.
Glistening under fake fluorescence
humming in harmony
with the magnetic motors
of conveyors, centrifuges and camshafts.
Biological blobs of gamete...

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The sand is stained red
with our bygone blood,
the blood that brought us from Ararat to the Alti,
a tribe trekking intrepidly through the Eurasian terrain,
caravans of Caucasians clad with Celtic tartan twills
plaids upon the pale horse...

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Sappho Translations III by Michael R. Burch


Bed the bride with the beautiful feet,
or bring her to me!
—Sappho, fragment 103b, translation by Michael R. Burch

I long helplessly for love. Gazing into your eyes not even Hermione...

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Sappho Translations V by Michael R. Burch


Sappho, fragment 23
translation by Michael R. Burch

I long helplessly for love.
Gazing into your eyes not even Hermione compares.
Who is your equal?
I compare you only to goldenhaired Helen among mortal...

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The elderly Elmer Brown dwelled alone, like a solitary tree on a hill,
Loving quiet, glazed life still, in burgundy, sunset moments of until.

A widower, Elmer Brown had generations of offspring, living far away,
Feeling fresh, foreign...

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“Women can change better’n a man,” Ma said soothingly. “Woman got all her life in her arms. Man got it all in his head.”
“Man, he lives in jerks-baby born an’ a man dies, an’ that’s...

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I was born at great heights,
For the peak of morning rays and the glacial snowy nights ,
I never listen to my parents nor their way,
And when my mother holds me I escape and melt away,
At...

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their councils priced themselves 
straight out of the mystery market
elevation via will power gone idiotic
still overrated by all the cackling heads
of all the universities
deluded that they count for something
the professors rushed out into the night
tearing...

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Warm water cleans my soiled body.
Viewing a naked woman, I stand.
Washing me and overlooking my sin,
“Look, our bodies are beautiful.”

Angels were given beauty as this.
Muses aspired for beauty as pure as this.
Love never arouse above...

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My mind is a dreamy river, 
that flows untiring - smooth and rapid, 
murmuring the words it adores, 
the burbles of its ponderings.

These burbles of my musings
are simple little things I admire, 
that capture my...

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I had a quarrel with my own life 
I didn’t want to divulge it to anyone I knew
It was then I met the one who in many eyes,
Had sparked feelings of sympathy or contempt

Confined to...

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The white antique porcelain bowl
your mother gave us
has blue veins that wander over its surface.
Holding it up to the light I also see
there are fine cracks here and there.

Age has made it more interesting,
more worth...

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Bold, wide, and gently rolling or narrow, crisp, and clear, 
rushing over bedrock. Broad shouldered to carry the burden
of the depths, or lithe and athletic, coursing swiftly down a
stream. Men stand and gaze transfixed by...

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Rain falls on granite.
Glaciers unwind.
Snowflakes decrystallize.
A murmuring stream collects,
in the confluence of the melt.

A river is born.

Her banks expand.
Nutrients collect in the torrent.
Rocks tumble in the frothy white water.
Speed and power intensify,
with the reshaped swell...

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(Written about 2005, as a sonnet, but I cannot recall why I used 13 rather than 14 syllables per line. Maybe Petrachan? Forgive me if it fails the sonnet test.)


For My Wife and Daughters: STREAMS...

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i was just a kid the first time i met him
he borrowed my brand new wrist-rocket
and scampered off into the night, laughing like a ghoul
the sound of two young lovers on a beach, punctuated by...

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Rain falls on granite.
Glaciers unwind.
Snowflakes decrystallize.
A murmuring stream collects,
in the confluence of the melt.

A river is born.

Her banks expand.
Nutrients collect in the torrent.
Rocks tumble in the frothy whitewater.
Speed and power intensify,
with the reshaped swell of...

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I thank Our Ford that you are here.
I always want to have you near.
When you are here, the sky is clear.
You are always the sweetest dear.

Skies are blue, inside of you.
From that old bottle of...

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NIGER DELTA

The Atlantic Ocean is your neighbor,
With its marine creatures in them
Your vegetations are your pride.


But the God of creation kept back something
In your earth, yes the black GOLD.
These have attracted the good the bad...

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A river folds upon its banks 
with waters deep and cold.
Its molten flow rolls endlessly
from aquifers untold.

It ripples over ancient stones
placed when the earth was cast.
Each sheared and formed the bedrock's course
'neath outflows bold and...

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Of ocean waves
their moon-powered course set rolling.
A wide river's flow
shouldering earth's water
and fertile soils toward broad deltas.
Nightlong thunderstorms
saturating all kindred life to the roots.
The wild, unbridled wind,
that frames and shapes the land.
Witnessing all these abiding...

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FOR THOSE WHO ALSO SACRIFICED…
   (APROPOS SHEROES AND HEROES UNKNOWN)

Theirs too, was a journey of blood, flowing 
From shores of seas to beds of rivers:
Filling pitchers of freedom overflowing
With captured liberties and unshackled...

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-man at bay, unity away-
     I stepped to the shore
             alongside the unity 
     ...

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Far from urban chaos, plastic and Styrofoam
The stream tumbles as it has for untold years
Trout swim with joy in their pristine home
Clear water, falling from those virgin tears

This is the land of Hiawatha, with mountains...

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I will sing to thee of love,
from the mountain top of time
Let the rivers of love
in my mind
                flow
 ...

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