Long Deprivation Poems

Here We Shall Remain
by Tawfiq Zayyad
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Like twenty impossibilities
in Lydda, Ramla and Galilee ...
here we shall remain.

Like brick walls braced against your chests;
lodged in your throats
like shards of glass
or prickly cactus...

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They called their gang The ReVolutionaries,
my Father Sun and Mother Earth drew time with them,
but they often called themselves Yang and YinYin,
respectively and mutually respectful
yet privately erotic,
not so much politically and economically
where Yang could not...

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Harriet Harris, née Kuritsky gave up the ghost...

~ May fourth, 2005
wedded bliss nearly fifty years
half a century almost
me not most favorite grown offspring,
she (when alive) did boast,
about youngest sister and her family,
unlike me – severely...

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[This poem 'No God Of  Mine' was seemingly confounding readers as
to its meaning. Ordinarily, if I felt a poem wasn't  cutting it, I'd delete
it, but on this occasion, I've been asked to explain it... so here goes.]


By...

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BodyLove feels like muscular energy, 
while AgapeMindLove emerges weirdly in reverse;
mind fluency, fertility, health…

Not in any way dissonant with BodyLove,
ideally
to grow maturing health also ecologically balanced 
EgoAnthro ReGenerate Positive Psychology
HealthAsWealth EarthTribal MindBodies.

That is,
I feel like...

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Introduction: once again I incorporate 
my trademark penchant 
to fabricate fictitiously
portions of the following poetic endeavor
can you care to 
discern fact from fiction?

Attempts at lifelong friendships and holy matrimony...

Shot thru with figuratively cankerous nub,
cuz yours...

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Depression is like dying
without hope this process will end well,
without remediation
at least not for my closely held ego-identity,
and despair 
this turning inward
creates a cocoon by avoiding outward.

Focal awareness of ego mortality, 
immanent and emanant,
eminent,
turns inward,
returns...

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A Brief For The Defense 

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies 
are not starving someplace, they are starving 
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils. 
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants....

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Don't you think that this title is darkly divine?
But, of course, there will have to be weirdness that’s funny,
Though my nightmares are many and have complex arcs
There’s some risk here I might have to work...

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Back in the height
of our pre-millennial military-industrial
post-revolutionary days
of competing excess...

No, love,
Stick with
Once upon our Sacred Times...

Once upon a time
here in the US of Northern Americas
we used a Reservation Model
to dispose of hopelessly disabled aboriginals,
too RightBrain...

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Imagine your favorite faith community,
whether sacredly vocationed,
or, more prosaic, secularly employed,
is also home to your local Green Freedom Party,
intentionally multipartisan.

This community intends to remain compassionately faithful 
to short-term local
through long-term global
public and climate health
of all...

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Who sings this song
of one hand dancing?

No, honey,
get it right please,
What is the sound of one hand clapping?

One hand clapping
is the same difference of song as sound
between co-arising bicamerality
and dipolar binomiality.

Both hands begin and end
with...

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Embrace The Lines

Vitality marks gently stretch your soft skin beyond the wildest dreams of
beauty unbound where children had once or thrice embraced your womb
the soothing waters cushioning and cradling three miracles three water 
marks engraved...

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Mine psyche riddled with dybbuk
Thru emerging adulthood awareness awoke
within noggin of average baby boomer bloke
catastrophization toward risk taking I evoke
positive growth experiences throughout vast
number of orbitz around sun never kickstarted,
nor linkedin with potential livingsocial folk,
thus...

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Ranking best 
health and safety options,

Our Project Team revisits potential resources
directions
options Win/Win inclusive,
Win/Lose defensive,
Lose/Lose mutually degenerative destruction

Outcome predictions
responding to long-experienced yields
of sacred organic relationships
and not so much secular mechanized Other
and Lesser Things

not always Capitalized Thoughts
with...

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When the StraightWhite Patriarchal President
sent out his Praise and Thanks Message
"We love you"
to those who would cathartically enjoy beheading
VicePresident St. Peter's Pence 
loves homophobic St. Paul,

This felt like too much tolerating
an unconstitutional intolerable
absence of basic...

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Standing up for the kids standing up to sleep in overbearing heat clothes damp from their pee, God made night separate from day, but with lights bright all night as well as all day, the...

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Mine psyche riddled with dybbuk

Thru emerging adulthood awareness awoke
within noggin of average baby boomer bloke
catastrophization toward risk taking I evoke
positive growth experiences throughout vast
number of orbitz around sun never kickstarted,
nor linkedin with potential livingsocial folk,
thus...

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I often fail to notice
nuanced distinctions
between ethics of punishment,
retribution, on right hand
and boycott,
shunning revenge, on my left;

Between reigning down further abuse
and more quietly raining temporary neglect,
social 
economic
political distancing.

Punishment is a tool
for privileged narcissists,
win/lose competitors,
colonizers,
for fake-righteously...

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The past was locked in with very little 'right of passage'.                        ...

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Harriet Harris, née Kuritsky gave up the ghost ~ May 4th, 2004

Often these days
(closing in on the eighth
anniversary of eighth orbit
around mister sun),
the following genuine sentiment
Matthew Scott Harris
doth wish to share 
how one and only...

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Lament of My Life Contest
Sponsor: Casarah Nance
 

~My Bereaving Eulogy~ 


Time seemed to pass so much faster than I expected,
All the love, loss, passion and things I have neglected.

How many times have I lost a...

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"Well  to  a  certain  degree  yes I  really  don’t  want  to  impose.
I’m getting  used  to  my  deprivation."    As...

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Cement, sand and gravel, blood, body and soul
Eternity bred from hell's darkest hole
Combine gruesome aggregates, hydrate the mix
Mould them and dry them, then stack up the bricks.

Thought in advance and precision laboured
Set automatic, eternity savoured
No...

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I have been reluctant to write this poem
Because I don't want to disappoint anyone
from going to heaven
I have been reluctant to write this poem
Because it has been a heavy burden
Yesterday  a little past noon
I...

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