Long Dirges Poems

(Created using the bAbBlE sentence generator, various text excerpts, and a minuscule bit of human editing.) 

And she smells good without keeping all ...

Beef, sitting lonely on that lies floating on the tufted floor. "Surely,"...

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Enheduanna is the first writer we know by name. She created the first poetry anthology and hymnal, circa 2250 BC, in ancient Sumer. She was the daughter of King Saragon the Great. 

Lament to the...

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A Stolen Memory
A Mirthful Chorus
By Sy Roth 


We surrounded him 
Asked to let go.
She stared at the misshapen face,
Unshaven sandpapery skin 
Eyelids a tabula rasa
Fluttery sere skin
And we could see the humor blossoming in his...

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Lament to the Spirit of War
by Enheduanna (circa 2285-2250 BCE)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

You hack down everything you see, War God!

Rising on fearsome wings
you rush to destroy the land:
raging like thunderstorms,
howling like hurricanes,
screaming like...

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My parenting totem
was the Hawk
of bicamerally perfect egocentric vision
usually greeted by a loud Yang squawk
and vigorous walk
in the other wrong direction.

My WiseElder totem
is the Turkey,
CoMessiah of CoRedemptive Dying
as notnot loving EarthTribe's future lives.

At eight,
my totem...

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A man takes a bath in his tired apartment
Old enough to remember the deportations that never happened 
Hums a careless tune - a forbidden tune. He gasps
Did the neighbours hear him? Will they report him?
Should...

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In My Language

This you might not know is a conversation,
It’s a conversation not of persons.
This is a conversation of multiple languages.
If you could observe the functions of my mind,
You would marvel at the thought processes
Criss-crossing...

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A narrow way
between left-brain dominant history
in wealthy solidarity
with right-brain prominent yin-flow

Heart-touched and nature-tasted
multi-generationally tested
both/and cooperative health
with either/or competing against
stretching
creatively/uncreatively fragmenting ego-integrity potential
for win/win left here/now
with win/lose health/pathology remembering night,
cautioning,
tip-pointing both/and heuristic
holistic
holonic timeless fertile right
EarthSoul centered...

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                       I
 Was a midwinter morn gravely put
    to ground,...

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In the valley 
I'm down on my haunches 
with the tall grass whispering around me,
enveloped like I was wrapped in a blanket
I listen to the mournful dirges 
of my scattered brothers and sisters
filling the skies...

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CATULLUS TRANSLATIONS 4

Catullus LXV aka Carmina 65
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

Hortalus, I’m exhausted by relentless grief,
and have thus abandoned the learned virgins;
nor can my mind, so consumed by malaise,
partake of the Muses' mete fruit;
for...

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Statements

With hesitation, trepidation, caution, I dance softly
to the music, the sounds of interrelationships, step lightly
upon the dance floor of  relationships, of commitment,
- that dance of souls to different drummers that doth rent –
as we...

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The mirtangist may never willingly hear
may not want to hear
the multaiyam announcing his cue
nor the melodist aware of the flautist's right
to the change in the raga
the plucking of the yal strings
to the goatskin drummed bleats
and...

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It seems that, more and more, I feel myself being drawn to face the dreaded realization that I am certifiably mentally ill, not just depressed, or anxious, or emotionally exhausted, but deluded, my sensibilities having...

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My mind's a naturalistic blur;
    She is a hazy green image
    pressed up against the lens
    Our hands press against each other
    only...

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 Convoluted; buoyant, defiant contention,
            sleeps in the corridors of mind.
           Dreaming of release...

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THE UNKNOWN

Unbeknownst to you , you touched the deepest recesses of my heart,
such a long time ago, and it seems so far away.
You are the oil that penetrated these old and rusted hinges -
making it...

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So, is this personification
of political systems?
asked the organic ecologist.

Or politicization
of intimately
yet transcendently
secular and sacred
personal economic-nutritional analysis
of health-wealth trends?
asked the macrosystemic economist,
in his rather too long projecting way
of exploring means
and medians
and in-betweens.

And both?
asked the theologian
after listening...

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They placed me in a wooden box 
                       and then they put the...

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Once "City of Big Shoulders,"
 Stockyards and industrial concerns:
  A man's self-worth measured
   By muscle and energy burned.

Today the stockyards are shuttered,
 The Face of Livelihoods changed;
  From Meat-packing and Manufacturing---
...

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Poem 18

Percival Jordan

1892 - 1912


I am where I am
Because of who I was.
I imbibed a million breaths
And observed the stars dotting the night skies
Like actors taking the stage for another eternal encore.
I am in the...

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In the realm of shadow where memories are born and die unnaturally,
And stars watch in silence, reflecting celestial nostalgias.
The Moon dresses in the silk of night, preparing for union,
With the night's dew, in a celestial...

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one drowsy day’s afternoon 
by a pond where green leafy reeds swaying in a breeze 
the sun enjoys a nap enveloped in a halo, the own glory
 
on the gentle weaves 
a water strider gliding...

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What I appreciate about playing musical chairs

This game is less about sitting around in chairs
and more about the traumatic absence 
of safe secure chairs

And these chairs are silent as a conspiracy;
not the least bit musical,
as...

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THE UNKNOWN

Unbeknownst to you, you touched the deepest recesses of my heart.
You are the oil that penetrated these old and rusted tight, hinges -
making it possible, to open, once again, the steely doors to my...

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